


The Weight of Our Intent

by arcapelago (arcanewinter)



Series: Burdens [2]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: 1970s, M/M, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-08-29 07:58:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8481709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanewinter/pseuds/arcapelago
Summary: It's 1970.  The war worsens, temporarily halting Charles' dream of his school for mutants, and Charles continues to struggle under the moral responsibility of his mutation.  Meanwhile, Erik has invested himself in the support of Charles, despite its price of patience and inaction.This timeline follows the events in The Burdens We Long to Carry.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WIP. Feedback is appreciated. I can't promise I won't have to retcon a few things as I go.

The great doors of the foyer were open to the grounds despite the bitter chill of the early winter morning. The sun would not rise for another few hours, but the thin blanket of snow under the stars left nothing in shadow. Charles felt the cold creeping into his lungs as he breathed, but they did not have long to wait now. He'd been following the journey with Cerebro, and had only roused Hank when it was nearly time.

"You're nervous," he said gently to his companion, lifting his eyes after a moment to gauge Hank's expression, at rare times a better indicator than his telepathy. Hank's face indeed betrayed his tension, the tightness in his jaw easy to see again now that his face was smooth and absent of fur or the underlying bulk of dentition.

"I'm not a medical doctor," Hank answered. "Not really. I don't have the training."

"But you have the knowledge, and the intellect to compensate." Charles continued to watch him from where he sat in his chair. He found his hand already resting on his leg, fingers rubbing at a small scar, one of many expertly placed, which he could hardly feel through the fabric of his trousers. "You did a fine job with me," he offered. "And you'll have Erik to help you."

Hank hesitated, but nodded, and Charles turned his face again to the world outside the mansion, now lifting his eyes to the sky. "If things go south," Charles murmured, concentrating, "the hospital isn't far. But I want him under our protection as long as we can have him."

Hank's gaze leapt upward as he caught the movement Charles had been anticipating, and they watched as Erik descended onto the drive, the gravel and road salt crunching loudly under his boots in the silence. When he straightened with his cargo, he swayed slightly, but Charles was the only one to see it as Hank rushed out with the prepared gurney, taking it down the ramp that had been installed down one side of the broad steps.

Charles waited in the foyer, his breath catching as Hank helped Erik lay Alex out, unwrapping him from the blanket to set his limbs right. His right arm and side were bandaged, but blood was seeping through. His sedative from the field hospital had worn off, but Charles had kept him unconscious and resting. It would last until Hank resumed the medication below ground.

He didn't waste time to stop Hank as he pushed the gurney back up the ramp and past Charles, but he offered him his silent encouragement and an assurance that he would meet them soon.

In the meantime Erik had trodden heavily up the stairs, and now rested, breathing in deep huffs, with his shoulder against the door jamb. Despite his obvious exhaustion, his eyes were resting focused on Charles and the corner of his mouth had spared enough energy to curl upward. "Don't get up."

Charles smiled, though its mirth was tempered by the situation. "You're about to fall over. You don't need to hold me up, too."

"It's nothing," said Erik. "I've told you."

Charles gazed at him, the half-smile persisting in the certain comfort of things never changing, even those things that were sometimes exasperating, sometimes almost unbearable.

Shifting to place his feet on the floor, he slowly leaned forward and tested his control before he straightened up. He moved to draw one heavy door closed, then the other as Erik slid himself with effort to rest back against the wall instead. His eyes were drooping now, but still he watched Charles as he came close.

"Then at least let me help you," said Charles. He'd already slipped one arm low behind Erik's back, feeling the weight in the sag of Erik's ribcage.

"I can walk," murmured Erik with some defiance, but Charles hardly heard it. Erik smelled like wind and like cold, his natural scent stripped away by the elements. But his mind was here, indelible and familiar.

"I wasn't going to carry you," said Charles.

Erik laughed through his nose, and Charles took that moment of weakness to draw Erik's arm over his shoulders and ease him from the wall, bearing as much of Erik's weight as Erik would let him. As it happened, Erik seemed to grow heavier the further down the hallway Charles brought him.

At the threshold of the bedroom, Erik gripped the doorway. "I need to help Beast."

"Not until you've rested," said Charles. "Hank needs to assess the situation, and you're more hazard than help like this, even with Emma's assistance."

For a moment Erik's grip remained tight on the door frame, but he soon released it, and Charles took him the rest of the way to the bed. He lay him down, though Erik seemed to begrudge him for it, and removed his heavy garments and boots. By the time he draped him with the blanket, Erik had ceased to protest in any way at all.

*****

Though concerned for Erik, Charles didn't linger with him. He returned to his chair, releasing his use of Erik's ability, which he could not wield with any precision all the way down on the subterranean level where Cerebro and the modest medical facility were housed.

In the lift, a new installation that nevertheless matched the style of the aging mansion that slipped away above him, his mind drifted ahead of him to glimpse Alex through Hank's eyes. He was still unconscious, a state now regulated through Hank's expert application.

By the time the lift doors opened onto the bright corridor, Charles knew what to expect. He also knew, before he even reached the open door to the room, how Hank would be watching Alex with a anxious pinch to his brow.

Although Charles had spared himself of the shock, it was still a difficult sight. Alex was covered to his chest with a thin white sheet on the operating table, his face smooth but unnaturally pale. Charles wheeled himself into the room slowly, allowing the light creaking of his chair to alert Hank of his arrival. Hank looked up, pursing his lips as he composed himself. "Professor."

"What can you tell me?" Charles asked.

"Not much more than what you already know," he said. "Most of the shrapnel would eventually come out on its own, but some of it is deep. We'll need to extract the worst of it to avoid complications."

"Erik?" Charles asked.

Hank nodded. "He'd make it easier. There are also signs of infection, but I'm already treating it."

Charles reached forward to take the edge of the sheet that covered Alex's right side and lifted it slowly. His bandages had been removed, revealing a bevy of lacerations over his arm and his ribs, some still weeping of fluid and blood. Beneath the sharp smell of iron lurked the fetid tinge of rot. Soberly he let down the sheet again, lifting his eyes to Hank's. "What about his recovery?"

"Impossible to say for sure," he answered. "He took it pretty badly in the arm. There's some apparent damage to the connective tissue around his elbow and forearm and there's bound to be nerve damage throughout." Hank's gaze dropped. "He may not recover full use."

For a moment Charles said nothing, his eyes narrowing with sympathy as he watched the rhythmic, almost mechanical rise and fall of Alex's chest under the sheet.

"I thought--" said Hank, pausing until Charles lifted his face, "I thought they were taking care of the landmines."

Charles nodded. "And they were doing a good job of it. But even such a sophisticated tactic as theirs could not be perfect under the circumstances." Alex could sear away the ubiquitous vegetation, while Sean's ultrasonic waves caused the mines to disturb the soil at the surface to mark their location. Alex could detonate them from a safe distance; other times they could simply be avoided. Charles was not the only reason they hadn't been separated in the ranks.

"Is he stable for the next couple of hours?" Charles asked.

Hank nodded. "He'll benefit from a few hours' rest on antibiotics before we begin the extraction. I'll be here to watch him."

Again, Charles nodded. While he'd been up most of the day and night ensuring Erik's success with the authorities and tracking his progress home, he'd made sure Hank got as much rest as possible in preparation. "Thank you. But call on me if you need me."

"I will," answered Hank, and he seemed a little more confident than when Charles arrived.

*****

Erik did not find rest where Charles had left him--not yet, anyway. Awake nearing two days, he'd entered a familiar mode of survival that was not easily shut off, not easily relinquished. Alone in the bedroom, no matter whose home it was in, he was still responsible for his own safety, and rest would not come unless--until--he could entrust it to another.

He found himself in the kitchen, necessity driving him to the next best thing. He took cold dinner from the refrigerator and did not bother heating it. He sat alone at the table as he ate, grateful for the stillness, the silence. But there was some guilt to that gratitude. He knew Charles longed for the day his students and his teachers could return, could fill these halls and these seats once more with the vibrancy of achievements and struggles sure to find resolution. Erik felt foreign to it, yet he wished for it anyway, for anything but where Charles found himself now.

His plate was empty in front of him. Minutes passed with his gaze upon it, but he did not know it until Charles wheeled himself into the doorway of the kitchen, and time shifted again, in a smaller increment, before Charles spoke.

"Hank's got him for now," he said. "We've got some time."

Erik nodded. He stood up from the table, joining Charles under his almost palpable concern. He placed one hand on the back of Charles' chair as he walked, not to push it, but to be supported by it, to be grounded by it down the long hall to the bedroom at the end.

Once there he allowed Charles to take his trousers from him, to draw back the bedding for him as he moved to lie down. The heavy drapes were still drawn, shutting out the morning light, but Erik had no trouble tracking Charles' movement around the room. Charles, though, switched on the lamp on his side of the bed before he climbed in beside Erik and settled there where Erik could examine him in more detail.

"I'm fine," said Charles, gently. It was not dismissive, but so brimming with assurance that Erik could not help but doubt. It was true that Charles' mind was open to him through their habitual connection, a fusion that by now felt right and natural, but it did not preclude a deliberate lie.

Nor, really, did Erik want it to. And it worked both ways. Their communication remained purposeful, not compulsory. Nothing was taken without being given. And if Erik gave himself entirely, it was yet by this principle.

Erik closed his eyes. He did not tell Charles to be careful. There was no point to it. Instead he let his hand slip from Charles' shoulder in repose, the rest of him following, giving in, giving up, for now.

*****

Charles woke a little over an hour later. With some difficulty he extracted himself from half-under Erik and transferred himself to his chair, forgoing the use of Erik's powers to move what no longer responded to his own command. The wheels were silent as he made his way to the refurbished wash room and pushed the heavy door closed behind him.

He caught sight of himself in the mirror and sighed. It was no wonder Erik hadn't believed him. He might brush through his hair, trim his beard, liven his face with cold water, but he wasn't going to get that look out of his eyes.

And he wasn't the only one who wore it.

When he was finished he crept quietly back through to the hallway, then proceeded with a more normal pace through the hall, so quiet now. No friendly, inquisitive faces stopped him on his way to the lift; none of his peers sought his approval for lesson plans or training regimen as the lift descended. Instead he passed two of them in the infirmary and approached a third at the very end of the subterranean hallway.

As Cerebro opened for him, Charles began to announce himself, knowing it would be some time before she would hear him, with her mind so very far away and so mired in sorrow that he waded through it like a floodplain across the platform that bore him to her. In the center of the cavernous space he pressed his salutation more firmly and set his hand on her bare shoulder until slowly her eyes focused and she reached for the controls. The air was immediately lighter as Cerebro quieted; the flood no longer dragged at him.

"It's early," said Emma. "What's happening?"

"I'll take over for a while," he said. "Erik's returned with Alex. Will you be able to assist them when they're ready?"

Charles watched her as she took the circlet from her head. She looked as tired as he did. Though their methods were different, he knew she was under the same weight as he. But she was resilient. She tipped her head with a expertly feigned curl to her mouth. "Sure thing."

Charles took the heavy circlet from her and set it in his lap as she stood up and drew away the chair she'd been sitting in. "Thank you, Emma."

Already making her way down the platform to the exit, she didn't interrupt her pace to answer, but she lifted her hand to acknowledge it. If anyone considered the spoken word to be redundant, it was she, and certainly with him.

When the doors slipped closed behind her, Charles rolled his chair forward and lifted the circlet with its mass of wires over his head. He drew his breath deeply and quieted his own thoughts before flipping the switch.

It was like plunging into the arctic, every time. An excess of stimulation shocked the breath out of him until he could staunch its flow and will his stomach to unstick itself from his spine. He took another moment, treading water, listening to the dull chorus of the nearest few hundred miles before he felt in control and pushed a little further out. The anonymous masses faded away as the familiar took their place, clear and singular and beloved by him.

_"Raven."_

_"You know, forty seconds ago I was in the restroom. Do you just have good timing or do you hover around waiting for the right moment?"_

Charles laughed, surprising himself. _"Good timing, I promise you. How are the facilities, anyway?"_

_"They need renovating like you wouldn't believe."_

_"It is the Capitol Building. Has anything come up?"_

_"Nothing seems to be moving at the moment. I did get to make some improvements to a couple of speeches I think you'll like."_

_"Nice work."_ In his pause, Charles glimpsed the suited politicians who passed her in the hall. If they paid her a second glance, it was to offer a passing greeting to their colleague. _"We've got Alex."_

_"You did the right thing, Charles."_

_"Perhaps."_

She didn't seem satisfied with his reply, but returned to business. _"Listen, I haven't seen anyone so much as wearing a hat indoors since you asked me. I've crashed just about every meeting I could track down, on the books and off."_

Charles frowned. _"Some people are naturally resistant to telepaths."_

_"You think that's all it was?"_

_"Until proven otherwise."_

_"All right. I'll keep looking."_ Her attention abruptly shifted from him--an interaction with someone she was looking for--before it made a brief return. _"Check in later."_

_"Right--good luck."_

Charles withdrew from her with the immediacy she expected from him, but he did not switch Cerebro off. Instead, after a moment's hesitation, he settled more heavily into his chair and set his mind adrift, to be drawn away like a ship on the edge of a whirlpool.

*****

Erik knew before he opened his eyes that he was alone. It was a peculiar sense that could feel a room and Charles' place in it; a sense that came from Charles himself, a barest fraction of what it must be like to internalize the machinations of every soul for miles. Such was his familiarity with it that he knew its absence, too.

He saw the bedding Charles had moved aside, followed the slight impressions the wheels of his chair made in the rug to the wash room, noted the water droplets in the sink too fresh for evaporation. He bent to use this low basin rather than the taller one that existed for his use, then dried his face before the mirror. He was stooped before it like his scrutiny might divine Charles out of it.

Charles shared his dreams when he slept. Erik didn't think Charles knew that; perhaps when all of this was over he would allow him to know.

Downstairs, Emma was waiting outside the door to the infirmary, but when he stepped out of the lift she turned and went in so that by the time he joined her there she'd had a few seconds to look.

Though she did not display it openly, Erik noted the signs of her empathy, her distress at the condition of her brethren on the operating table, a sight she had apparently avoided until this necessary moment. Though Erik often knew her by different qualities altogether, he could see the teacher Charles had so prized in her, before the war had drawn Charles' focus, and hers by cooperation.

"How is it?" he asked, his attention on her for the moment. He could tell she'd recently come from Cerebro.

She lifted her eyes from Havok. They lost their softness, though her shrug was pointedly casual. "You know. Still cleaning up the messes men make."

By agreement he said nothing; Beast was nervously busying himself with checking instruments and straightening a tray of tools that seemed to Erik to keen with the precision of their edges. The buried tones of shrapnel answered their call.

"Will he heal from this?" asked Erik, bringing Beast to face them, hands folded before him. Erik had seen injury before, much of it obviously fatal; he'd felt his share of it, too. But the raggedness he saw before him was a complexity of trauma that demanded consideration, and doubt.

"If we're thorough, he'll heal well enough not to suffer chronic infection. But under the surface, we can't hope for much."

That was good enough for Erik. Some things had to be. But though Beast's hands were steady--surgeon's hands, though he wasn't quite that--little else was. "You're sure we shouldn't leave him to a hospital?"

Far be it from Erik to cede expertise to ordinary humans, but he wouldn't risk the life of a mutant in arrogance, his own or otherwise.

Beast's answer was less than satisfactory.

"Charles thinks I can do this."

"Charles sees the best in all of us," answered Erik. "It doesn't mean he's right."

Beast's gaze shot up from the table. Erik didn't say this to beat him down; on the contrary, his aim was the very fierceness that seemed to ring the pupils of Beast's otherwise-human countenance. Charles' confidence was helpful, but it wasn't the crucial one.

"Gentlemen?" prompted Emma, and Erik nodded, along with Beast. As her diamond form restructured her, Erik's concentration narrowed only to the task before him, as sharp as the blade Beast took in hand.

*****

Though mostly blind to the mansion while consumed in Cerebro's far-reaching gaze, Charles exited its chamber just as it seemed the operation was concluding. He advanced quietly to the open doorway, nevertheless catching the attention of Emma, who was looking herself again, and Erik, who was already looking there for his arrival. Hank, watching the monitors and making a few final additions to Alex's drip, finally looked up as well.

"How did it go?"

All three of them looked exhausted, and Charles knew hours had passed, but their general emotional expression was one of hard-won success, even if Hank's spoken response was more reserved.

"He won't wake up for a while," said Hank. "When he does, he won't be feeling great, but we'll have taken the edge off."

"I'll stay with him," said Charles, already wheeling himself into the room. "I need a change of machinery."

Hank looked relieved, his shoulders already sagging in anticipation of a good chair, but Erik remained stiff. "Let the medication do your job for once."

Charles smiled. "Not for the pain. I don't want him to be confused when he wakes up. He'll have questions, and who better to answer for them."

Emma looked briefly between them, but was not invested in a situation that didn't need her. She took her leave smoothly, her fingers briefly touching the scalp beneath Charles' shag of hair as she passed him, a somewhat friendly gesture that at once acknowledged his reduced height and thinning hair as well as the particular burden they shared. Hank followed her after making a final check, and Charles took his arm as he passed, noting the scant pattern of blue hairs that had erupted around his face. "Well done, Hank," he said, and Hank answered with an unsteady smile before Charles urged him on his way.

That left him Erik, who moved a step closer when Charles approached and let his hand be taken when Charles clasped it.

Charles took a moment to appreciate its wiriness, its implied dexterity before straining Erik's understanding to press its knuckles to his lips. "Go take your run," he said, allowing himself some amusement at Erik's baffling want of it. When Erik was unmoved, he added, more soberly: "I want to be alone when he wakes up."

"Come with me. You can afford the hour."

"Later," said Charles, but in truth he dreaded staying. He dreaded not letting Erik take him away.

*****

Having Emma in his head was very different than with Charles. While he slipped in like water, she sliced through like ice, and when she withdrew it took time for his thoughts to thaw and re-occupy the gap she left. He didn't need so much to clear his head as to fill it again, to let his consciousness wander from the point on which it had been focused. One path fit for running was cleared and salted regularly, but he did not board the lift.

Instead he entered a small room along the corridor that had been more often used for its privacy while the school had been in operation. These days there was no reason not to have such conversations out in the open upstairs, but the large board along one wall still served a purpose. Though Charles' and Emma's concentration lay far to the east, they made periodic sweeps of the country and indeed the world to identify what mutants could be found in need of intervention. At times Erik was called upon to target the threat itself, or to relocate families, or sometimes to bring mutants to Charles himself when in possession of errant abilities in need of his direct guidance. Frequently he needed do little more than aid mutants--or, at times, their bereaved families--in the hire of attorneys better interested in enforcing the Mutant Protection Act that Charles had secretly strong-armed into federal law.

As he stood before the board now, he needed do nothing at all. It was empty.

*****

Charles drifted in and out of light, uncomfortable sleep for the rest of the day and into the night while Alex breathed long and even. Now and then Hank brought him tea, once some sandwiches, and took over for a while so that Charles could visit the bathroom off the bedroom, the only one with the necessary equipment. At the time, Erik had been nowhere Charles could feel him--not without trying too hard.

When Charles returned there had been no change. He fell back into a half-dozing state in a room with no windows where the lights, though turned low, remained on as the night deepened. Several times Charles began a conversation, each time in his head, a dream, a hallucination. But when Alex finally did open his eyes, Charles knew it was for real.

Charles approached, not too quickly. "Alex, it's Charles. You're safe, but you're hurt. Don't try to move."

Charles watched his blue eyes sweep groggily over the room from the slight incline of the bed before they closed. Alex coughed, and winced. "Where's Sean?"

"He's still there. He's all right."

"Then where the hell am I?"

Charles felt his throat tightening. It all unraveled from here. "You're in Westchester. We brought you home."

Alex's jaw tensed so tightly Charles could hear his teeth come together. He swallowed, and his eyes remained closed. What he saw behind closed lids, Charles didn't try to know.

"You left thousands of guys just like me there," said Alex.

Charles knew the state of things, in the hospitals and out. He saw their faces, all at once, one after the other, and had to turn his heart from them. He denied them.

"Not just like you," he said. "I couldn't leave you where you couldn't defend yourself if you had to."

"They actually wanted us there. We weren't--" Alex coughed again, painfully. He lifted his working arm to close it over his bandaged elbow. The furrow in his brow remained.

"I wasn't ready to trust them," said Charles, watching him. Alex's pain was dulled only partially by the medication; what perplexed him was the inconsistent absence of feeling under the bandages.

"Do you remember what happened?" Charles asked.

"No." The crease in his brow smoothed on its way to a harder expression. "But they told me. My fault."

"You can't be blamed," assured Charles. He was ready to say more, to make more assurances, but just then Alex rolled his head against the pillow to stare at him. Though he said nothing, there was a language in the way he held Charles' gaze for what seemed an unbreakable moment.

But Alex coughed again, his eyes finally straying, and closing. "I can't move my fingers."

Charles' mouth felt slow to work. He could still feel the weight of Alex's gaze stamped on him. "There's been a lot of damage. You may regain feeling."

"Might not," Alex finished. But the thought that Charles sensed from him was that it could have been so much worse, because he'd seen it happen in front of him, he'd seen it happen to his friends, seen it happen to the enemy. "They discharged me, didn't they? Or did you make them?"

"I hurried it through," confessed Charles. "That was all."

Alex's lips pressed together in a thin, bloodless line. His chest rose and fell in several rounds before he spoke again. "What about Sean, then? You put us in the same troop for a reason."

"Sean wants to stay on. It's his choice."

"Well, I didn't choose to go. I didn't choose to come back."

Charles frowned. "I couldn't stop your injury, Alex."

"No. Just the whole goddamn thing."

Charles sat mute as Alex turned from him. He was trying to raise his shoulder to shift in the bed, but when nothing moved he shook himself in frustration and fumbled beside him to take up the morphine control. His good arm tensed against the sheets with each press it until surely it had dispensed the limit Hank had set, and he tossed it, finished, with everything.

He was out in moments. The hardness had left his face; the tension roping his neck left it relaxed against the pillows. Before Charles left him, he came close to replace Alex's arm in the sling and straighten the blanket he'd nearly thrown off. From there he could see absolutely no other way to help.

*****

To Charles' dismay, the sound of the lift had already called Erik to the hallway when Charles exited onto the ground floor. He knew his emotions were apparent; he was tired, he was careless.

"What did he say to you?" asked Erik.

Charles sighed. "Nothing he shouldn't have."

The expression on Erik's face hardly changed, but his quick, deliberate steps toward the lift broadcast enough. When Charles reached out to stop him, Erik's determination nearly toppled the chair and Charles with it before he halted.

"He has every right," said Charles, meeting Erik's gaze from beside his wrist. "Don't hold it against him."

The iron will in Erik's arm slowly eased, and Charles' grip with it. Erik made a step back and faced him.

"He doesn't know what you've been doing."

Again Charles sighed, wishing suddenly that he were already in bed, already asleep. He opened his eyes to look up at Erik, his tongue feeling as heavy as his eyelids.

"You should tell him," said Erik.

"I should sleep," corrected Charles. His hands found the rims of his chair and he straightened himself out. "So should you. Will you join me?"

Erik stared disapprovingly, but Charles could tell that Erik felt more exhausted than he did. He made one last look toward the lift before giving up and letting Charles lead him away.

*****

In the bedroom, Erik was in bed first, but still awake when Charles left the washroom. He could feel Erik's eyes on him as he undressed and knew what he saw, reflected as clearly as in the mirror he avoided. He tugged a pajama shirt over arms and a chest he'd have been envious of in his younger years, then sat to pull up flannel bottoms over legs that didn't look like they could support him.

In truth, they couldn't. But where muscle once acted on his skeleton, now thin strips of metal were affixed to the bone, replacing their function. The stress applied by his weight helped keep his bone density in good order, but it did nothing for the muscle, which was not readily jolted into response. Walking the grounds at length helped latent locomotor reflexes to kick in, independent of the brain's signals, but there was no longer enough time in the day for such things.

Still, some efforts were too important to neglect. Sitting down on the mat against the wall, Charles deftly stretched himself out, testing each joint aided by its metal counterparts and taking in hand those free of alteration, namely the kneecaps, the center plane of each foot, and the toes between the first and the last. There was no creaking or unexpected resistance--nothing fractured or even swollen, as far as he could tell.

Rising to his feet at last, he made a controlled fall into bed at Erik's side and drew up the bedclothes. Erik rolled to face him, sliding an arm under Charles' neck.

Erik's hair, though showing some evidence of a brush, still suggested a buffeted passage through the wind, and when Charles closed his eyes he indulged the notion that the scent that still lingered on his person was the stuff of clouds and magnetic fields and other fanciful nonsense.

"In a few days," started Charles, reluctantly rousing Erik a step back toward alertness, "we should renew our agreement."

"I was just on the other side of the planet," said Erik. But the words were flat: cards already folded. "You're not that good."

It wasn't a strong argument, but neither thought it was. Charles opened his eyes, answering Erik's close, pale gaze with a smile that faltered as he spoke. "Every day I rebuild myself on this, on us. Everything's going to hell, Erik--let me be sure of this at least."

"I won't refuse you it," said Erik, plainly, a tone to calm a child, _The sky will not fall; nor the sea spill over; if there are monsters, I am their king._

Charles closed his eyes again and nodded, his chin pressing into Erik's shoulder. He did calm himself--in fact, cheered himself--and in a show of it he shifted in the bed, bringing his hips forward to brush against Erik's nakedness. He willed the lamps to go out, and Erik's power complied, allowing the relief of darkness to join the quiet that had already settled over him.


	2. Chapter 2

At the side of the pool Charles lowered himself down out of the wheelchair and shuffled himself along the matting until he was just at the water's edge. Despite the sun cutting through the glass ceiling of the atrium, the air was almost frigid, but here close to the heated water a chlorinated humidity assured him that it would be a warmer welcome. Still, he carefully reached down to test it. He knew he could recover from a shock of winter-chilled water if he had to, but it was not a challenge he was eager to meet.

Finding the temperature warm as expected, he gathered his legs under the knees and swung them over and into the water. Then he lowered himself in at the corner and pushed off firmly with his hand.

The trick to not sinking was not to stop moving. He knew from the noise of it that his motions looked a little shy of frantic, but there was a certain staccato force involved in not just propelling the body forward but also appreciably upward, and with only two limbs to accomplish it. He made it to the other end of the pool on five hard-won breaths, never straying too far from the side in case he needed it.

On the far end he held the lip of the pool until his arms felt like arms again and his lungs shrank to their normal size, then pushed off once more, using the preciously solid surface for all it was worth, to return the way he'd come. And back again, back again, knowing how far he could push himself.

He was so consumed by exertion that he did not register Erik's arrival until he had safely gripped the side of the pool and Erik's presence rushed into him alongside a lungful of air. He pushed the hair out of his face and blew the water from his lips. "Come to join me?" he asked, practically at Erik's feet. "It's warm."

"If you want," said Erik, agreeable but tellingly dispassionate. Charles knew that for Erik this was no sport for company.

"What I want," mused Charles, his chest still heaving as he drew himself along the side to the ladder, "is some hot coffee and solid ground." Taking the side rail of the ladder with both hands, he hefted himself out of the water, twisting to seat himself on the ledge. He rested his shoulder against the ladder's rail and smiled when Erik handed him the oversized towel, which Charles scrubbed over his hair, then drew around his shoulders. "To what then do I owe the pleasure?"

"Faulty wiring," answered Erik. "In the attic."

*****

Erik watched Charles narrow his eyes with some bemusement. "Is that metaphorical? Or have the lights literally gone out?"

"It's literal, and I don't know." Erik matched Charles' easy mood, if only to be part of this most ordinary discussion. This was not his house, but he'd spent the better part of a decade sheltered by its walls. He felt some responsibility toward it. Or that he ought to feel some responsibility toward it. "But I can feel it."

"Can you really?" Charles' toying smile had broadened, though he tamed it thoughtfully a moment later, almost conspiratorial. "What does it feel like?"

Erik tipped his head, still standing above Charles where he sat. He supposed he could describe it, either clumsily simplified or lyrically overwrought, but he didn't have to do either. "See for yourself."

Charles lifted his chin and appraised him briefly, then tipped his head, same as Erik. Erik kept his thoughts clear so that Charles did not have to look far, and in that stillness Charles' own thoughts traveled to him uninterrupted.

_It feels the way a burst pipe sounds,_ he thought, but he said, "That's almost painful."

Erik would have shrugged, but it seemed redundant.

"Your turn," Charles said, before Erik could say anything else.

From his height, Erik watched Charles' face, silently gauging the hopeful determination he found there and weighing it against his own considerable reluctance. It always hit him hard in the stomach, a reflex, a rejection. 

"Not anyone we know," added Charles, softly. "Will you?"

Charles, who sought to give whatever he took--Charles, who believed balance was the rightful state of things, that it could be applied to anything.

Though the tight ball in his stomach hadn't left him, Erik descended, crouching in front of Charles. He took hold of the other rail of the ladder and watched Charles as he lifted his fingers from the edge of his towel to press them against his own temple instead.

"Give me a moment," Charles said. Erik could hear the effort he made to mute his pleasure, not only because he understood Erik's hesitance, but because he needed to concentrate. Charles rested his head back and half-shut his eyes, saying, "I'm not as good with distance as Emma is."

Erik did as requested, watching a blankness creep into Charles' expression, shutting Charles' eyes the rest of the way as it did. He kept still so that he made no disturbance, and just as it seemed Charles' arm would drop with the lack of tension in his muscles, Charles' eyes opened and focused on him.

At first he heard and saw nothing different. But he realized that the mental wall Charles had been teaching him to develop had been thrown up in reflex, and with an effort like choosing to breathe underwater, he cleared the blockade and forced himself open.

The floor might as well have fallen out from under him. He lost all concept of orientation. He felt as though he'd blacked out and woken somewhere else, many times, but gradually he was able to find his footing, to keep anchor in the only consciousness that was really his and hold his vantage. Even still it was a slippery connection, _he_ and _they_ , back and forward, and he hated it for this, but he could tell that Charles had not been careless.

It was a movie theater, dark, comfortable, and though there were a dozen minds to mire his attention, their thoughts were almost entirely synchronized by the engrossing thriller on the screen so that even in their underlying variety he was not overwhelmed by chaos. And even when he found himself distinguishing a unique thought and helplessly following it through a complex network of memories and jolting emotions, he could also feel the net that slowed him down, that kept him from falling too deep to see the way out again. Still he kept sinking into the next and the next, unable to find resistance, solid ground on which to catch his breath in solitude.

It felt like an age before the theater and its occupants receded from him, not by his own will, but he knew Charles would have kept it brief. Not even a minute could have passed before he was again staring at Charles, real and uncompromised, distinct and distinctly _apart_ from him.

Charles lowered his hand and set it gingerly in his lap. He was searching Erik's face, almost anxious in his silence. When Erik could still not move himself to speak, he asked what Erik saw.

Erik tried several times before he smiled. It was forced but it was there. "Nothing to wage a war over." No anti-mutant sentiment, at the moment.

Assured by his response, Charles visibly relaxed. "That's good, isn't it?"

Glad for the ladder's support, Erik pushed himself up on legs that weren't immediately up to it. "Even the most loyal dog can turn rabid."

Charles gave him a disapproving, but unsurprised, look, then also gathered his legs under him to stand up, his towel held tight around his shoulders. "I bet you don't even cry at the end of Old Yeller. Will you let the electrician past the front door or did you want to fix the wiring yourself?"

Feeling magnanimous, Erik shrugged. "Let the man feel useful."

Charles lifted an eyebrow showily, but in the end acknowledged Erik's allowance with a simple nod. "Hank's ready for us," he said, instead. "I'll meet you there when I've dressed?"

Again, Erik agreed.

*****

Just as soon as Charles closed himself in the isolation chamber, Erik reached toward the clipboard that Beast held and was annoyed when Beast pulled it out of his reach and gripped it more tightly against Erik's tug of its metal clip. Erik sighed. "You don't have to follow it to the letter."

"If I don't, he'll just make us do it again," said Beast, and begrudgingly Erik knew he was right. And he knew that it made Beast every bit as uncomfortable, and he watched Beast push his glasses higher on his nose as proof of it.

Beast only needed the glasses in human form. Erik often derided--mostly in silence--that Beast would accept the imperfections and comparative weakness in pursuit of an ordinary appearance. Beast was stronger, faster, infinitely more perceptive in his true form.

But he wasn't the only one to have traded one thing for another, to have bartered in the name of cowardice.

Erik remained standing while Beast sat down on one of the lab's stools. He listened as Beast cleared his throat and clicked open his pen, but his eyes were on the smooth chrome surface of the isolation chamber.

"'Do you, Erik Lehnsherr, acknowledge that some part of telepath Charles Xavier resides in you whenever in range of you, regardless of whether he is actively using your abilities?'"

Erik had heard this stilted speech many times before. Like it, his response seemed rote, but he would give Charles--later, in his memory of this--no cause to doubt his seriousness. He listened as though for the first time, and he answered as though the buried heart of him was meant to be shared and not guarded.

"Yes," he said.

A metallic scrape recorded the answer.

"'Have you, Erik Lehnsherr, experienced any negative consequences whatsoever, no matter how slight, related or unrelated to the telepathic connection between you?'"

"No."

Another mark on the paper.

"Finally, 'Do you, Erik Lehnsherr, agree of your own free will to continue to allow Charles Xavier to use your abilities for his own purposes, occasionally reading thoughts that you did not consciously share with him?'"

Erik watched his reflection in the chrome as Beast spoke. How would his past self answer? Should he see there in his reflection the rebellion of a man whose only purpose had been to find and punish Sebastian Shaw, and to do so alone, without help or interference? Should he see there distrust of all others, self-preservation at all costs?

He shouldn't see anything there at all. Before he met Charles, Erik hadn't imagined that he existed outside of Shaw. Indeed he had accepted that his own destruction was necessary to destroy Shaw, and it hadn't particularly bothered him. So this life--this new life, perhaps it did belong to Charles. And was Erik willing?

"Yes," said Erik.

"Do you have anything to add?"

"I do not."

Erik stepped to the chamber and rapped on its door.

When Charles emerged, blinking in the bright lights, he didn't look at Erik until the clipboard was in his hands and he had scanned, then carefully confirmed, each of the marks Beast had made. When he was satisfied, Erik watched as he released the paper from its clip and folded it, once, twice, three times, making the creases unnecessarily deep before fitting it into his chest pocket.

*****

As Cerebro's doors slipped shut behind him, Charles stopped a moment in the cool, dimly-lit space and rested, eyes closed, in his chair. He wanted this moment alone with his own relief. He wanted this moment to examine, even to relish, the sensation of the good things in his life, the things gone right, the things that had turned out as he had hoped.

That he had not driven Erik away--that he continued to wield his own most dangerous potential against him, him who prized his own autonomy above most else. That Erik continued to allow his mind to be invaded, subjugated, however infinitesimally as Charles could manage.

At the same time, Charles knew he allowed it in return. He was not selfish--would not be selfish--but he had promised Erik that he would not refuse this gift that Erik knowingly gave. He would not spare himself of the worry it caused him at the expense of Erik's happiness.

If, and when, Erik decided to end their agreement, Charles would not protest. No, if he so much as suspected the notion of it in Erik's mind, he would encourage it, he would praise it, he would all but end it himself. But until then, he was grateful. He was cheered, and he never felt so safe in his right to be so than in these moments immediately following Erik's chance to say No.

Finally advancing along the platform, Charles stopped before the panel and lifted the wired helmet of Cerebro. His fingers found the switches but they seemed to stick in place before finally moving; or maybe it was his own reluctance. He winced with the jolt of Cerebro's power. Pathways rubbed raw with the flow of information twinged to receive it again.

He found Raven first, too eager to put it off. He told her of the conversation he'd just had, that Erik had no immediate requests of her, that they both wondered if she might come home.

Charles didn't think she would. She had an agenda of her own to complete; her usefulness was in the field and not at home; they still had no explanation for the blind spot Charles noticed in Cerebro's gaze over Washington weeks ago.

" _That sounds nice,_ " she answered, and Charles felt his face break into a wide smile, shattering a mold.

' _Nice._ ' Charles thought it sounded _wonderful_ , and he clung to the familiarity and comfort of her voice in his mind for as long as he could.

*****

Hours later, when Charles emerged from the confines of Cerebro, he was weary and in need of a strong drink. Instead, he met Alex in the corridor, leaning against the wall, one arm in a sling and the other folded over his chest beneath it. He was dressed in sweats, no longer the makeshift clothing of hospitals, except where the sleeve of his sweatshirt had been cut off.

Charles approached until the doors shut behind him. "It's good to see you about," he started. "How are you feeling?"

"Not very much," said Alex. There was a hard smirk that accompanied his answer, but there was an underlying fear that, for Charles, softened it, made it understandable. Prolonged numbness was an unsettling, foreign experience. Numbness sometimes made him happy to bleed, to see the healthy color of it, that it was not the sickly formaldehyde of dead things.

Charles wanted to offer this empathy, but it was clear Alex hadn't been waiting here for that.

"You spend a lot of time in there," he said. "So does Emma. Obviously you're doing something." Alex made to shrug, though only his left shoulder obeyed him. "I just can't figure out what."

Alex's gaze, which had been fixed on the wall across from him, now turned toward Charles. Charles knew it would remain there until he was satisfied.

_You will be staring until long after I am gone,_ thought Charles, sadly, but he did not communicate it. Instead he gripped the arms of his chair and by degrees sank into it.

"I've been watching."

Alex's expression rippled with contempt, though the rest of him was stone still.

"'Watching.'"

"Yes."

Alex wanted more. His mouth worked around the emptiness of the denied explanation and his head began to nod in the mockery of acceptance.

"Were you watching when half my squad went down in a helicopter? Were you _watching_ when we ran for cover straight into a trench we didn't know had been sabotaged? Were you _watching_ everything I've seen, everything I'd had to _do_?"

The air around him began to waver with heat. A single arc of energy rotated over his shoulder and chest before dispersing into the wall, scorching it. He pushed away from it, some of the blackened plaster crumbling, and began to pace the corridor, wall to wall, between Charles and his only exit. "Sean could have died. _I_ could have died. Every day since we got there! A hundred times a week! People died every fucking place we looked! And you're letting it happen! Fucking _Christ_ , Charles!"

Alex had stopped in front of him, the force of his curse bending him forward. His good arm was wrapped around his stomach and he was heaving, waiting, either to destroy the house he stood beneath or for Charles to speak before he did it.

Charles could negate none of this. He let the air in the corridor cool and he wished he could reach up to Alex and steady him where he seemed to be slowly crumpling. He wished he had more to give him. Instead he spoke gently.

"Do you remember Stacks? He was in your fire team for a while. Gigantic man, sharp-tongued. He frightened a lot of people, but if you knew him you knew he was more frightened than any of them."

Alex lifted his head with a hard expression, but he said nothing. Charles edged on.

"Or Nielsen, in your squad, he didn't speak much but when he did it was what everyone was thinking. Or Pinkerton, he was hardly born in time for the draft. He asked you when you first knew you were a mutant because he was hoping there was still a chance he was one, too."

Charles watched Alex's face for his lips to part in the sibilant of _Stop,_ and he ceased the painful rumination when he saw it, before Alex had to utter anything at all.

"I didn't learn any of this through you. I knew them. I was with them when they died. I'm with most of them when they die. They were not in pain and they were not afraid. This is the path I have chosen. For both sides. Emma's methods are different, but she has chosen the same."

Alex had straightened somewhat, though his shoulders still seemed to bear a weight he couldn't throw off. Charles could see his test of this information, his recollection of the story he'd heard of the eerie quiet in one of the field hospitals even though the morphine had temporarily run out; of the strange, blessed delirium in the carnage of the helicopter crash.

"What about now?" said Alex, hoarsely. He lifted his chin to Cerebro, empty, behind Charles. "When nobody's watching?"

"We try to slow it down. Encourage some predictable rhythm." Charles pursed his lips, confessing what he knew Alex already suspected. "It's not always possible."

Alex snapped his head away, scraping his lips over his teeth. "Like you're not the one deciding what's possible."

"I'm sorry, Alex." The inadequacy of it pained him--shamed him. Nothing he could say could explain his overpowering remorse for it all. "I wish you knew how sorry I am."

"I swear to God, Charles, I'd break your teeth out of your head if you weren't in that chair."

Alex's gaze remained squared on Charles for another heave of his chest before Alex turned and paced down the hall toward the lift. Charles sighed, filling the void again with a deep inhale, and another, feeling like he'd been holding his breath for an hour. He listened to the tone of the lift and the metallic slip of its doors, but did not watch him go, only glad when he could feel Alex's turbulent mind receding from him.

It was cowardly, but for now he was grateful for the growing space between them.

Until he felt Erik move into Alex's path upstairs.

*****

Erik was already on his way down the corridor on the ground floor when Havok burst out of the lift and stormed in his direction--on his way to the stairs, the front door, the bottom of the lake: Erik didn't care. As Havok passed him Erik caught his bad shoulder with his own and backed Havok up against the wall before Havok could recover from his stagger.

"What is your problem?" he demanded.

He knew what had just occurred downstairs. He knew as though it had just unfolded in front of him, as though he were there. Sometimes Charles couldn't help it.

Havok didn't question it. He would have erupted at anyone, unprovoked.

"He is doing jack _shit_ to change what's going on over there," he spat, anger overcoming the fresh breakthrough of pain. "And I am struggling to figure out why I'm the only one who's _got_ a problem with it."

The lift had already reached the basement level again. Erik felt as Charles moved into it, as the doors closed and the lift began to ascend.

"And whose interests would you have him represent?" Erik asked. "The Americans'? Or the Vietnamese'?" He studied Havok's face as though at leisure, though he stood close enough to keep Havok where he was. But it was easy. Havok wanted the fight.

"Yeah, I get it." Havok laughed, short and almost manic. "They want us out. Believe me, they made sure we knew. But not all of them want the VC in charge. And they're thrown in prison camps for opposing it. Or worse. The VC have to be stopped. I would think you'd understand."

In his mind, Erik took Havok by the jaw and thrust forward with enough force to splinter the wood paneling behind Havok's head. In reality, Erik didn't move.

"Don't compare this."

"I'm not," Havok grated, his teeth clenched as though anticipating what Erik hadn't just done. "But innocent people are dying, Erik--civilians and peasants and soldiers who didn't ask for this and Charles could stop it. He's got Cerebro. He just needs to give a damn."

The lift arrived at the ground floor. The doors would open in another moment.

Erik kept them closed.

"You know him well enough to know that he does." He felt Charles vying with him for his power, to negate his control over the lift.

_Erik!_

Charles could have forced it, overwhelmed him, but he didn't.

_Let him be!_

"Would you still be looking the other way if he could have saved your family? Your neighbors? And he didn't?"

Erik stared at the rising color in Havok's face. He'd balled the neck of Havok's sweatshirt in his fist, and Havok's throat worked against the increasing press of Erik's knuckles.

"Would you have forgiven him?"

Erik tightened his grip. "You dare to treat him like he has anything to do with the sins of man and you think he's the one needing my forgiveness?"

The sound of the lift doors at the end of the corridor concluded the question. Whether Erik's focus had slipped, or Charles had finally usurped control, Erik didn't know. Without breaking his stare, he reluctantly released Havok from his grip and let him jockey his way out from against the wall. Distantly, he heard the thudding of Havok's boots on the steps, while in the opposite direction he felt the churning of the wheels on Charles' chair.

He turned to face him. When Charles had got within a few feet of him he stood up from the chair to close the distance on foot and he stood before him, his face taut and flushed with anger as Erik rarely saw it.

Erik didn't offer a defense. He expected the words, or perhaps heard them already, _How dare you use violence against him; He can't be blamed for being angry; Don't lock me in the bloody lift--_

But the breaths left Charles with less force each time, and his eyes lost their fury with every blink, until his legs seemed to want to buckle and he twisted and stepped backward into the wall just next to where Havok had been pinned.

He was propped up against it, his strength gone with the anger.

"Would you?" he asked.

"What?"

"Have forgiven me?"

It took Charles another moment to lift his eyes from the rug. Erik sighed, long and agitated. He didn't want to think of this. He couldn't afford to recreate his past, to replay it under different circumstances, to analyze it under different conditions. He couldn't consider how he might feel if the person he loved most could be stained with a single drop of blame for it.

"You were a child."

"If I hadn't been? If I'd had the means?"

"I don't know."

The words came shorter, unkinder, than he had meant. He forced himself to change his posture instead, and his words came more gently. "And you don't know what you would have done, or not done."

Charles studied his face in silence before a weak smile very briefly turned his mouth and he lowered his gaze.

Erik watched him before sighing again, more quietly this time.

"Sit down."

He waited to see that Charles obeyed him, that he moved to take the chair again before leaving him there, taking the corridor into another part of the house. He found one of Charles' heavier coats next to a well-cut wool coat that Charles had given him but whose fashion Erik seldom had use for. He took both of these and returned to Charles, who seemed surprised.

"I need some air," said Erik. It seemed colloquial enough. "Come with me?"

When Charles finally smiled this time, it had more strength to it, but it was yet dogged with a humility that didn't suit him. He stood up, and Erik tucked his own coat under his arm to help Charles into his.

Erik shrugged into his own, but let Charles straighten him out by the lapels. He even stood patiently, although somewhat foolishly, as Charles buttoned him up.

"It looks smarter like this," said Charles, sheepishly.

"Yes, Charles," said Erik.

*****

Outside, the evening was dark and very still. The snow muffled everything but the closest of sounds--the scraping of the salt under their steps, their breaths a little harsher than normal--and there was no wind to rattle the bare branches of the trees.

Perhaps it had been a selfish request. Perhaps it always was. Erik was aware that Charles shivered silently beside him. He was aware that Charles had fished out the gloves from the pockets of his coat and had buttoned it up to the top of its standing collar. He was aware that any ice that survived the salt was a real worry for Charles and that even the salt itself presented an uneven surface under him.

But it calmed Erik. To journey alone with him, even in miniature, ever in sight of the looming house. To exist in tandem with him, to be involved in the workings of his person, to be understood without speaking.

But in that freedom he did speak.

"I shouldn't have done that," he said.

Charles, who was watching the path carefully in the refracted light of the snow, glanced sidelong at him.

"Which part?"

Erik met his glance, then looked ahead again with a shred of mirth. "You choose."

Charles snorted, his breath pluming out from him abruptly.

They continued on, side by side on the path, until it curved under some trees and they became less visible from the house, and the house less visible from them. Erik looked up at the sky through the branches, and found Charles doing the same before his eyes returned pragmatically to the path.

"He never thought he'd have to go," said Charles.

Erik didn't need to ask him who. After all, he'd been there, though at the time Havok's disbelief and anger had been far more contained than now, out of a lingering respect for Charles that had apparently not made it back from the war.

"If Sean hadn't enlisted freely, he would have asked me to nullify his draft. I probably would have done it. But he never thought it would actually come to it. That I'd allow it."

Erik studied Charles' face quietly. They walked more slowly now, and Charles' breath condensed in a thin cloud before him each time he sighed.

"He'll hardly let Hank treat him. If he keeps it up he'll have to be admitted to hospital anyway."

The old rivalry. Erik never had much patience for it, but it had legitimized itself when only one of them was pardoned from the draft as Charles' caretaker.

Erik stopped along the path. Within a couple of paces, Charles stopped, too, and looked back at him, distracted from the spiral of his thoughts. Erik knew where they'd lead.

There was a fork in the path, here, though where it veered off to the left it was still buried in snow disturbed only by the thin trail of a fox. Erik only knew the path at all because of the parting of the trees, all the way to the boathouse on the edge of the frozen lake. He stepped off into the snow, which dusted him nearly to his knees. "Can you manage it?"

Charles looked past him to their apparent destination with some doubt, and Erik held out his hand. Charles' cheeks were flushed and his nose was red, but his smile, though modest, was warm. He took Erik's hand and allowed Erik to lead him.

"You can walk in my steps," said Erik.

The crunch and squeal of the snow under their weight for a time filled the silence for them. Erik's footing was sure, and they moved steadily forward toward the clearing of the lake. The snow had begun to creep up under the hem of Erik's trousers to melt against his ankles, but he didn't mind it. He wasn't dressed for this. His mother used to chide him for it, but he never minded it.

Charles stumbled forward with an "Oof" that seemed louder than it was when he collided with Erik's back. Erik stopped and reached behind him to steady Charles until he could regain his footing.

"All right?" asked Erik.

"Probably," Charles answered.

But instead of moving forward again Erik bent to lower his grip from Charles' side to under his knee. "Hold on to me," he said, sparing little thought for his own intentions. When Charles obediently wrapped his arms around Erik's shoulders, he took Charles' other leg and straightened, hefting him up. He plodded forward.

"You're in a strange mood," said Charles, softly, after a few steps. His breath was warm against Erik's scalp, warm behind his ear.

"I think you're right."

They didn't speak again until they reached the boathouse. Erik let Charles down and cleared a step of its drift of snow, then sat down, watching Charles carefully tuck his coat under him before he sat beside him.

Charles was studying him with a curious expression that reminded Erik of the way he often had when they'd just met, when Charles was trying to figure Erik out, when Charles was nearly delighted that he couldn't, even when he had Erik's mind at his fingertips.

"Nice night for it?" Charles suggested, with a hint of sarcasm that condensed in small fractures of ice in his beard.

"It agrees with me," said Erik.

"Mm."

Erik's attention was drawn to the trees by some movement. It had begun to snow. Clouds had moved in overhead, though the moon still shone near the horizon, its crescent sharpened by the cold.

Turning his head, Erik's gaze followed the trees toward the edge of the lake.

"What used to be over there?" he asked, eventually turning back to Charles.

"Over there?" Charles glanced past him, but seemed no better informed when he met Erik's eyes again.

Erik frowned. "Sometimes, you--" he stopped, uncertain how to describe it. "I know things about you that you haven't told me. Fragments. It keeps coming up."

Charles' expression softened, though for a long moment his eyes searched Erik's gaze. He made one last glance to the land beyond Erik's shoulder and then away. "It's not important, but I'll tell you one day. When I'm in a better mood."

Erik nodded, watching him. He wondered how it could be insignificant, this recurring theme of memory, but he didn't question him. Instead his attention fell to Charles' hands, balled up between his legs where he wrung his fingers in the cold.

Erik unbuttoned the bottom of his heavy coat, then pulled his shirt from his trousers. He reached for Charles' wrists and took his gloves, then drew Charles' chilled hands past his clothes and against his skin.

"You're so warm," Charles told him. Erik felt as Charles' fingertips rubbed over his ribs, and then Charles smiled, gently gripping at Erik's sides, emphasizing the paucity of his figure. "How are you so warm? There's nothing to you."

Erik leaned closer to him with the tugging. He laughed at it.

"Polyester."

Charles laughed, too, a small, private sound between them. When it faded, when Charles had drawn his breath again, Erik kissed him.

He let it be brief. There was just time enough to register the chill of Charles' lips, the coarseness of his facial hair, the short exhalation through Charles' nose. Then he parted, and he waited, blind for his closeness, reading the lines of Charles' breath between them and the Morse code of his warming fingertips against his ribs.

Soon Charles' hold of him strengthened. He pulled Erik back to him and his mouth opened under Erik's, much warmer past his teeth when Erik sought to test it.

Their knees knocked. Without breaking from him, Erik pivoted from the step to kneel in the drift one step lower than Charles, his hands on Charles' legs while the lessening chill of Charles' hands smoothed over his skin to his back. Erik pressed closer, and Charles' fingers descended the small of his back past the band of his belt.

" _Charles_ ," Erik responded, a sound of sudden weakness, a sound of want, of supplication. No one else had ever heard it. No one else would ever hear it.

Charles' arms tightened around him, dragging him full between his knees. He broke from their kiss, but pressed his lips along Erik's jaw, forcing him to tip his head, to expose his throat. A huff of Erik's breath condensed above them as the tip of Charles' tongue rasped over the stubble high on his neck.

"Inside," managed Charles. "Let's go inside."

Erik focused on their surroundings long enough to nod toward the structure at Charles' back. "There?"

"Not unless you like rats," said Charles. For the second time that evening he tugged at Erik's skin, urging him to stand. "Come on, come, come."

*****

They had managed to leave their shoes in the foyer, on the forced air vent, but a few clods of snow from their clothing marked their passage down the hallway. Erik, who hadn't bothered to put himself together again on his way back, dropped his clothing into a damp pile on the floor of their bedroom, and for once, Charles did the same.

Charles already knew it would be quick. He needed it to be quick, or so much else would catch up to him.

Erik reached for him where they stood beside the bed, cupping the back of his neck and curling his fingers in his hair. He let Erik tip his head back, let Erik kiss him, let Erik's tongue dip past his lips. So soon from the bitter cold outside, the room was too warm, even in their bare skin, and Charles could feel his own flush, radiating from where Erik touched him.

Charles closed his eyes. He let Erik back him to the bed, let Erik guide his limbs to climb onto it. When Erik's mouth found his again he answered it, and he huffed quietly into the open air when Erik's teeth and lips met him warmly elsewhere, across his shoulder, along his collarbone, up again, surprising him, behind the ear, along his hairline.

He found himself on his side on top of the bed covers--he couldn't imagine being under them right now--with Erik close against his front. Erik's fingers now and then brushed his stomach, and he felt down to where Erik had pressed his knee between Charles' thighs. Charles shifted to take his own leg in hand and drew it higher, almost across Erik's hip, to roll his weight toward him.

When he let go, Erik took his hand. He brought it between them and he curled Charles' fingers around both their cocks, under his own grip. Both were stiff, and hot, and Charles knew that Erik had deliberately coaxed his into response.

Erik sighed against Charles' mouth. Charles lifted his head enough to press him with a forceful kiss that made Erik's cock leap against his palm, and Charles felt a pleasant shudder in his stomach that mimicked it.

Pushing against the bed, Charles slid himself down further. Though they were no longer aligned, Charles had what he wanted more: the stiff, pulsing curve of Erik's cock arching against his stomach, where the nerves were still live and electric. He kept it pressed there with his palm, his thumb brushing the head of it to make Erik thrust against him, his own stomach muscles clenching in response to each reflex.

Erik's hand had moved to grip a handful of his hair, sending another crackle of sensation across his scalp. Charles pressed his nose, his tongue, into the hollow of Erik's throat and pressed his kisses higher on Erik's neck, feeling the vibration of Erik's voice--though it barely escaped him--against his lips. He let the muted sounds of his own cries join it, ruthless in his play of Erik's cock, fixating on the rigid slip of it over his navel, against the roots of the hair that grew in a line along its path.

When Erik came, Charles could not help but feel the echoes of it in his own mind, clenching his jaw, stiffening his spine. He kept Erik's cock against his skin until Erik became still, then released him, for Erik to fall to his back, his breath coming in quick pants that were already beginning to slow as Charles watched him.

After a time, Charles pulled himself up on his elbow and bent to kiss him, softly and briefly now. "Don't fall asleep," he said. "I don't have my chair."

"Too late," answered Erik, and Charles shook his head as he placed his feet on the floor and took himself to the sink in the adjoining bathroom. Erik was still conscious when Charles turned on the tap, but as he waited for the hot water to creep its way through the long lines of the pipes, he began to prepare the mental block that would be necessary if Erik did fall asleep while Charles was still in command of his power.

He was thankful when it wasn't necessary. Erik remained awake as Charles wet a washcloth in the hot water, at last, and he returned to the bed. He cleaned Erik up--under Erik's bemused watch--and then himself, doing his best not to re-arouse what had already given up the ghost. He stood himself up again to drop the washcloth in the proper hamper. Erik was pulling back the bedclothes when he returned, and he climbed in beside him.

Charles had just turned off the lamp, and just settled himself on the pillow, when Erik's wakefulness dropped away. Charles' followed it, without protest or complaint.

*****

When Erik woke it was far from morning. They'd got into bed earlier than usual, and so he was restless, but he hadn't expected the same of Charles, who was also awake. Charles was close against his back, but Erik could feel his uneven breathing. He imagined he could even feel the quickness of his heartbeat.

Erik turned his head from the pillow, but did not otherwise move, would not otherwise dislodge Charles from where he was held. "Charles?"

"Did I wake you?" said Charles. "I'm sorry."

"No," said Erik, but why else was he awake?

These were not his own thoughts in his head.

Erik closed his eyes again. The shadows of the room disappeared into a greater darkness and for a moment he let himself be hid in it. He breathed long and slow as though he could fall asleep again in that safety, but there would be no hope of that on this side of Charles' question.

"Ask me," Erik said. He could feel the rise of Charles' denial, and he added, "I already know what it is."

In the following silence Charles' hand, already against Erik's stomach, trembled. His arm, over Erik's side, tightened. Erik could not help but tense beneath it.

"Do you ever think," Charles began, "about talking to other--"

Charles didn't finish. He didn't know which word to use, and before long had lost all faith in the inquiry.

Erik put him out of that misery.

"Survivors."

Charles' hand curled into a loose fist against Erik's stomach. "Yes."

Erik sighed.

"I can't."

Charles said nothing.

Erik knew that Charles wouldn't challenge him. He knew he could leave the conversation, what little scrap it had been, and speak no more of it in his lifetime. Charles would allow him that. Charles had allowed him far more. But he wanted . . . No. 'Want' was not the word.

Erik sat up, and Charles released him. He drew his knees up and ringed them loosely with his arms. Charles pushed himself up beside him.

"Klaus Schmidt was interested in me because I was a mutant," he said. "And unlike the rest of them he didn't care what else I was."

Erik shifted his gaze from the foot of the bed, to the blankets over Charles' legs, to Charles' face. Charles watched him with unblinking eyes.

"I was fed. I was clothed. I had a warm bed. I was not starving to death, I was not freezing to death, I was not worked to death. I share nothing with those who survived."

He could feel that Charles thought otherwise. He could almost hear the litany, _You do, you do, you do,_ but at the same time, Charles understood, and the empathy that was pouring out of him would drown Erik, who could only sink.

"Erik," said Charles, finally. "I'm--"

"Don't." Erik reached to brush his fingers over Charles' jaw to the back of his neck, and he leaned forward to kiss him, to clear the words from him. When he drew Charles down again beside him, their silence, in the pretense of sleep, gradually became it, in a warm bed with the bitter cold just outside the window.

_No one apologizes to me._

*****

When Erik woke for the second time, a bright grey morning filled the large window between the open curtains. It had snowed through the night, piling a drift high against the glass. Charles was still sleeping. His nose was cold against Erik's shoulder, but his hand was warm on Erik's side.

Erik watched the falling snow through the window panes and did not move to get out of bed. He'd been dreaming of the snow. He'd been dreaming of a man's voice. Of footprints leading him up a hill.

" _You can walk in my steps._ "

It was a kind, soft voice, his father's.

But Erik couldn't remember his face.


	3. Chapter 3

In February the nights grew deeper and colder, yet Charles found himself out of his warm bed and wheeling his way down the corridor to the kitchen around two o'clock one morning. He stopped at the doorway and peered in, where the only light shown from the open refrigerator. Charles smiled.

Was this their way?

"I didn't expect you for another two days," he said, rolling further in so that he was no longer in the shadow of the hallway.

Raven straightened up, but slowly. Little could startle her. She smiled back at him. It had been almost a year.

"I didn't want to draw attention. I'd rather just show up at breakfast like it's no big deal." She closed the refrigerator, which cast the kitchen into darkness before she switched on a dim light over one of the counters. Back when the kitchen was a popular destination even past midnight, Charles had left that light on all night.

"There's not many of us still here," he said. "A small deal is all we could have managed."

"Even still." She stepped to him and bent to embrace him, and he held her, gratefully, until she straightened up again. She was in her natural form, but she'd added clothing, perhaps for no other reason than the New York climate, or perhaps not.

"Did you find something to eat?" he asked. "You might need to thaw something from the freezer."

She sat down at the table with a shake of her head, taking an apple from the fruit bowl instead. She bit into it. "Surprised Erik didn't wake up."

"He's awake," Charles said. "He's like a cat, you can't move without waking him. But if anyone respects privately sneaking into a residence, it's him."

"Not you, though?"

He smiled lightly. "Privacy still isn't my forte."

She laughed, shortly. It was good that she laughed.

He sat watching her for a moment. It seemed a luxury to view her directly, in the same space as he, like gazing at the expanse of the night sky unaided instead of through the confining lenses of a telescope.

"I'm glad you're here," he said.

She sat back in her chair, apple in hand. She glanced around her as though making peace with the place: an armistice, for now.

"Me, too."

*****

Erik opened his eyes as Charles transferred himself back into bed beside him. When Charles had resumed his place on the pillows, Erik asked, "She's all right?"

"She seems well," Charles answered.

"Mm."

Erik closed his eyes with the acknowledgment. At least one of them was out there--but even he would not banish her to an outpost. They needed their own kind; Erik would not give that up.

The bed began to warm again, approaching its former level of comfort. Charles shifted against him, then settled.

"Domestic or feral?"

"Pardon?"

"What kind of cat?"

Charles laughed quietly beside him.

"Even the modern house cat is, at best, semi-domesticated."

Eyes still closed, Erik snorted softly. "All right."

*****

In the morning, the breakfast table was fuller than usual, but it was just as hushed. Though Havok was still taking his meals alone, of his own choice, Emma and Charles were, for once, in the same place. Emma had greeted Mystique warmly--happy, Erik guessed, to dilute the male population of the house--but she looked as tired as Charles through the gestures of pleasantry. They tended toward silence. Beast was quiet for other reasons.

Mystique, as far as Erik could tell, didn't seem to mind the lack of fanfare.

When the meal was over, Erik ended up the last one in the kitchen with her. He was putting things away--something to do, though it took minimal effort for him--while Mystique had offered to take Havok's tray up to him.

"Don't expect much conversation," said Erik. He handed her a juice glass to complete the setting.

"Gotta try," she said, setting the glass in place. "From what I can gather you're running out of people he'll even see. Good job."

Erik turned to lean his hip against the counter. He folded his arms, but didn't argue. Instead he was examining her, the color of her hair, the hue and texture of her skin where it was revealed. It was in her nature to heal well, but she was not impervious.

"How is it out there?" he asked.

"How do they treat me, you mean?"

He made no correction. Erik had been working to be sure mutants were granted what was now legally theirs: the same freedom and protection as everyone else. But there was a reason he needed to.

She shrugged, looking over the kitchen smoothly. She sighed. "I never walked around like this near Washington. Didn't want anyone putting anything together. But I took trips. Just to get it out of my system. To let my skin forget them for a while, I guess."

He watched her without interrupting. She paused, and then smiled with half her mouth. "There was this guy in some town outside Chicago. He got right in front of me on the sidewalk--stopped me. People watching what he'd do. And he said, 'I just have to tell you that you're beautiful.'"

Erik lifted his brow. She still didn't look at him. He could tell that she had meant to deliver the story flatly, but her expression was all wrong for it. She shook her head suddenly, picking up the tray. "Does that answer your question?"

"He wasn't wrong," said Erik.

She stared a moment at the tray she was carrying before she lifted her chin and made her way out of the kitchen.

"I still punched him."

*****

Mid-morning, when he was sure he wouldn't interrupt them, Charles took the lift up a floor and wheeled himself to the door of Alex's bedroom. By now, Raven had left, and to Charles' relief it had not been the short visit he'd feared. Could he expect a double run on that luck?

He knocked, and though he knew it hurt his chances of entrance, announced himself. He waited, listening, almost holding his breath until Alex's muffled response.

"It's your house."

It wasn't exactly the affable greeting he used to enjoy, but neither was it a rejection. Charles sighed, relieved. He would get at least this far.

Turning the knob, Charles pushed open the door. The room was stuffy, and still smelled of breakfast, though Raven had taken the tray away with her. Alex was sitting on his bed with his knees up, propped up against the headboard. He had a book lying on its open face beside him, but his stare, which was focused somewhere across the room, seemed to have been there for some time.

Alex finally turned his head, studying first Charles' face, then the tray on his lap--of a different sort now.

"I know Emma's been doing this for you," Charles said, "but I thought I might, this time." He watched Alex's face for any sign of refusal, but there was little change, if any. "Is that all right?"

They hadn't spoken since the night Alex had raged at him for his neglect, his betrayal. Charles wouldn't push him, but neither would he abandon him. But to proceed, Charles had to choose a direction.

"If that's what you want to do," said Alex. His tone strived for indifference, but there was a bitterness there that dared Charles to come and see what damage he had wrought.

Charles accepted.

He pushed himself further into the room, carefully shutting the door in the awkward space so as not to dump the tray. As he finally made his way to the bed, he could not help rolling over the scattered pages of at least one newspaper, angrily discarded.

Alex had unbuttoned the short-sleeved Oxford, a loan from Sean's wardrobe, which proved less painful than Alex's preferred pullovers. He shrugged out of the easy side, then took his other arm out of its sling to draw the shirt along its length and finally off. His arm hung limply to the bed. His eyes were elsewhere as Charles approached, but in the last moment, he shifted, using his good arm to lever himself closer to the edge of the bed, where Charles could reach him.

Charles cleared a space on the nightstand and set the tray on it, then unfolded a towel to drape across Alex's waist. Wordlessly, Alex's gaze dropped to it, a distraction.

As Charles, with the utmost care, began to unwrap his arm, he asked if Alex had regained any movement, any feeling.

Still looking down, Alex shook his head very slightly. As Charles continued to unwrap, revealing bruising, the crust of blood and other fluid, the tiny knots of dark sutures, Alex added: "Maybe it hurts more."

"I'm sorry that you're in pain," said Charles. "But it may actually be a good sign."

Alex didn't answer. Charles continued working in silence. It was all for the better that he did. It horrified him to see Alex's injuries. There seemed not the smallest patch of skin unmarred or untinged by the violence of the shrapnel, first up the entire length of his arm and then, as Charles continued unwrapping, following the curve of his shoulder and then down his side. Overlapping yellows, purples, blues marked the canvas under the finer strokes of stitches and smaller cuts that had been left to close on their own.

What Charles didn't see, thankfully, were greens, blacks, whites, or the spidering purple of infection in the bloodstream.

Setting aside the old bandages, Charles poured out the warm water into its bowl and with the gentlest touch he could muster began cleaning the wounds. There was no life in Alex's wrist as Charles gingerly took it to lift his arm as he worked, but the muscle over his ribs rippled once under the washcloth when Charles reached his side.

That done, Charles reached for the new bandages.

"You're not even going to try talking me out of it," said Alex.

Charles stopped what he was doing to look up at Alex's face, but Alex's gaze remained downcast.

"You'd just keep letting me hate you."

Now Alex did lift his eyes. Charles met them, not knowing what he could expect there. He found a new weariness that washed the former anger and frustration into a paler hue.

Charles sighed gently. He began what was, for him, the arduous task of rewrapping the wounds as the bandage recircled Alex's torso. It was easier as he finally reached Alex's shoulder, and began winding it down his arm.

"Not everyone has the right to judge me," answered Charles, finally. He secured the edge of the bandage and helped Alex back into his shirt. "I think you do."

Charles watched Alex's face as his brow descended, as his lips parted finely. It wasn't anger he saw there now.

Perhaps Alex needed Charles to push back. Perhaps he needed something to rail against, something that would meet him strike for strike until he was too exhausted to continue. But Charles couldn't, not when he was outnumbered, not when he half-sided with Alex, condemning himself in the same breath as he found justification.

"If there is anything else I can do for you," Charles started, but Alex closed his eyes and canted his head sharply, dismissively.

Bowing his head, Charles collected the tray from the nightstand and placed it on his lap. Alex gathered the towel from his lap with the grip of one hand and gave it to him. Carefully Charles turned his chair away and began moving for the door.

Before he could get there, Alex said, "I can't sleep."

Charles stopped and listened to him.

"And when I do fall asleep I can't--I can't stay asleep."

"I'll come back tonight," said Charles. "We'll see what we can do."

For a moment Alex didn't respond, but then he nodded.

"And if you'd like to talk to Sean," Charles added, "we can do that through Cerebro."

"Yeah," said Alex. He accepted this more easily. "Okay."

Not wanting to spoil this small gain in Alex's confidence, Charles didn't risk saying more.

*****

In the evening Erik was sitting in one of the far-flung rooms of the ground floor, in what Charles had used as the music room when there'd been students around to listen to the seminal collection of music Charles liked. Earlier he'd been reading, but now the newspaper was folded over his knee.

He was looking at the fireplace; at the mantle with its gilded clock and its picture frames; at the extraordinarily decent landscape hanging above it; at the portrait alongside; at the faded wallpaper; at the outdated carpets; at the century-old chairs, one of which he was sitting in, its upholstery tired but once very fine under his fingertips. He was looking at these things and wondering when he had ceased to resent them, when they had begun to escape his notice altogether with the carelessness of one who grew up in their midst.

He was wondering when their general air of familiarity had begun to remind him of his own lost home, and the people he had loved in it. For lately he could not dream without borrowing them, he could not dress himself without seeing his father's hands in the shape of his knuckles or cover his face without recognizing the bridge of his mother's nose.

The dead had been raised in this place. He was not alone.

Not alone.

"There you are," said Charles.

*****

Of course, Charles rarely had any doubt where Erik was. It was a falsity, this typical statement of serendipity, but Erik never seemed to hold it against him, never remarked on its empty sentiment. Instead, Erik looked over to him with a near-smile, little more than a softness in his eyes that spoke volumes to Charles. He remained seated, as Charles was seated.

"Raven's homecoming suits you," Erik said to him as Charles wheeled himself into the room. Perhaps he felt lighter today; perhaps he looked it, too.

"Can't help it," Charles confessed. After all the struggle between them, he still hadn't learned to temper the simple joy he felt to have her in this house with him, bolstering his sense of _comfort_ and _order_ and _home_ \--even if he never did the same for her, much as he wanted to, much as he wished it. "I know she won't stay long, but she'll always be my family."

At Erik's chair, Charles stood only long enough to turn around and sit himself on the floor between Erik's knees, seeking his closeness while it was still too early for bed. Erik obliged him, making room for him, even sitting forward to bring his face into view when Charles tipped his head back. Charles felt Erik's fingers gently moving into the roots of his hair, and he closed his eyes.

"Sean is as well as can be expected," he offered after a moment, unable to give up the day and its responsibilities just yet.

"He finds purpose in compliance," Erik answered, but it was not derisive. When set with difficult, sometimes near-impossible tasks, Sean drew satisfaction from exceeding expectations. From their very first mission together, that was apparent.

"I admit it is a small comfort to me." Was he ashamed to say it? That he was selfishly relieved that one person seemed, miraculously, to be staying afloat? Charles still worried--God, did he ever worry--but it was a little less crushing. "I hope it was a comfort to Alex. To speak with him."

Erik made no response. While Charles knew that Erik understood Alex's emotional turmoil, he had so little patience for the outbursts, the overflowing rage, especially in Charles' direction. Instead, Erik's fingers had followed Charles' hairline to his temples, and he was pressing slow circles there.

Charles quieted. Under the gentle pressure of Erik's touch he kept still, and in the darkness behind his closed eyes, in the slow release of tightness across his skull, he breathed more slowly--then hardly at all.

For all the awe or the regard that anyone ever felt about what Charles _was_ and what Charles could _do,_ beneath it all there was fear--a revulsion, an instinctual rejection that manifested in a hesitance to linger too close to the part of him that was so different.

As Erik continued rubbing his temples, Charles felt the moisture slip from one corner of his eye. Before he could do anything about it, Erik had smoothly wiped it away.

"Dance with me?" he said, bringing Charles' eyes open with pleasant surprise. But then his heart fell somewhat.

"Alex is expecting me soon," he confessed.

"Just one," said Erik, standing up before Charles could protest further. He stepped around Charles where he sat. "Any requests?"

Charles could not help but laugh softly. He used the chair Erik had been sitting in to help himself to his feet. "Your idea, your choice."

"Very well," said Erik. He wasted only a few seconds at the collection before pulling out one of the 45s and drawing the record out of its sleeve. Charles recognized the cover, and he laughed again.

"That song's almost ten years old."

"Is that an objection?" inquired Erik, but he was already placing it on the turntable and directing the needle.

"No," said Charles, smiling as Erik approached him and the first notes of Jerry Butler's _Moon River_ claimed the room. He knew Erik liked it. And it wasn't as though any of them had been keeping up with the current airwaves these past few years.

Charles lifted his right hand. Erik took it, stepping into him to place his other hand just behind Charles' side. The song was usually fit for a waltz, but the four quarter time of this arrangement relaxed their options, and Charles settled easily into Erik's lead.

He closed his eyes, grateful for the closeness. Erik's hand moved to the small of his back, and Charles could just barely make out the warm pressure of his palm and perhaps two of his fingertips. He realized that Erik's hand must be under his sweater, against his skin, to make such an impression on his patchy nerves.

Though the lyrics were bittersweet, the melody bounced enough to keep sentiment afloat, and Charles slipped his grip over Erik's shoulder to the tensed muscle in his back. Erik's lips were close to his ear, and Charles smiled to hear Erik humming, a sound effortlessly commanded but so rarely wielded.

Had Erik hoped to distract him? To remind him of lighter times, more navigable trails? Or was there a simpler explanation; had Erik asked only because it was a nice use of three minutes on a cold night in a room with all they required for it?

It didn't matter, of course. When the last plucks of the guitar faded to the faint crackling of dust in an empty groove, Charles felt a pang of sadness, a return of everything they had to contend with. But the moment had been precious to him, regardless of its reason, and he only slowly gave Erik back to the world, releasing his hold of him.

"I'll see you for bed," said Charles.

*****

As Charles left him, Erik remained standing, only slowly drifting over to the turntable to stop its empty cycling. He was focused on his right hand, still poised in front of him as his left hand shut off the player and docked the needle. He left the record where it was.

The frame that Charles had used for a time made use of a broad back plate that had always kept Erik's touch well away from Charles' skin when they danced. This time, without it in the way . . .

Erik dropped his hand to his side and made his way out of the room. Once in the main corridor, he took the stairs down rather than waiting for the lift and stopped only when he was in front of the bookshelves Beast had filled with medical texts and journals. It was the wealth of knowledge here in this oversized closet next to the infirmary that had allowed Beast to expand his usefulness to them all. For now, Erik was only looking for something specific, something that touched on both the physical and the mechanical.

He pulled a book from its shelf and let it fall open in his hand just as Beast shouldered his way through the partially open door of the adjacent room, fitting through the frame a little less lithely than usual. He headed for a drawer along the far wall and paid little notice of Erik, who made no effort to hide himself. He knew Beast could sense him. Especially now.

Erik closed the book quietly and replaced it, emerging from the small library. It was only now that Beast paused, sparing him the shadow of a glance just before he guided the needle into his arm and depressed the plunger. In moments, he seemed almost to shrink, the blue hair receding past the edges of clothing that had split on the seams.

Beast tossed the used needle into a disposal in silence. As Erik watched, saying nothing, Beast stared for a moment at the Formica counter before he sniffed, straightened, and turned to him. He pushed up his glasses. "Something I can help with?"

"No," said Erik. He allowed this change of subject; Beast already knew how Erik felt. "Just browsing."

As he expected, Mystique was on her way down the stairs as Erik was on his way up. She stopped when she saw him, her eyes darting only briefly past his shoulder before her attention returned to him. She shifted her weight; she too was about to change the subject.

She didn't get the chance. No sooner had she parted her lips to speak than Havok came barreling down the wide stairs to the upper floor. He was shouting for their help.

*****

_"I don't know, he just fell. I couldn't catch him."_

_"What were you doing?"_

_"He was trying to--he was in my head."_

Charles forced his eyes open as the voices approached. His head ached with such insistence that it took him a moment to make sense of his skewed perspective of the room. He picked his head up from the floor and his vision swam, but he gathered his arms under him--both in working order--in what felt like a life or death effort to _get up_ before the others saw him.

There wasn't nearly enough time. Concern had hurried them through the space and across the threshold of the room while he was slogging through the motions of reaching for his chair, and he could not prevent Hank from swooping in on his embarrassment in an effort to examine him. Raven remained just out of his way, but she was all but transformed by her open and guileless worry.

"I'm fine," Charles said, as buoyantly as he could manage, trying to stem the flow of questioning, both spoken and silent. "Please, I'm fine. Just help me up."

Hank bent to take him under one arm, and Raven hurried forward to take him under the other. Charles felt marginally less ashamed once off the floor and back in his chair, but unfortunately the fuss wasn't over.

"What happened?"

"He was sitting on the bed," said Alex, before Charles could say anything. "I tried to catch him."

Charles could imagine it: Alex, fighting the numbness of a useless limb as Charles slumped and rolled out of his reach.

"It's not your fault," he said. "It was my own carelessness, I assure you all." Charles lifted his chin, hoping to strike some chord of credibility. He didn't blame them for their concern--he was the first one to threaten all personal boundaries when concerned for their welfare--but he had just made a bad situation worse through a truly foolish miscalculation and he was eager to salvage the situation before Alex thrust him out along with the others.

"Please, leave us." He almost begged. "Hank, I promise to see you directly, but I am fine."

Only stubbornness and, to Charles' remorse, his own irritability, won him the room again. Hank straightened up with reluctance and turned to leave with Raven to follow, but Erik, who Charles now noticed had not come further than the doorway, was the first to step away.

*****

All was not entirely lost. Alex, nearly as embarrassed of the attention as Charles, was hesitant to accept Charles' parting offer for the night, but his need of a night's sleep and Charles' assurance that his attempt would be a much simpler one this time finally convinced him. "It's more temporary than I'd wanted," Charles told him, "but it is child's play."

Sleep--only that, with no repair of his psyche--was as facile as Charles claimed. With Alex finally sent to slumber, as deep and as dreamless as possible, Charles left him. As promised, he met Hank in the infirmary before being approved for release. Raven had waited to confirm his good health before turning in for the night. And Erik--Erik was nowhere Charles could expect him.

It was a simple, even subliminal matter to locate him, but Charles turned his chair and his mind away from the great majority of the house and wheeled himself to the bedroom at the end of the hallway to await the inevitable.

*****

The door to the bedroom had been left ajar. Though the light inside was off when Erik began his purposeful trek toward it, it was switched on by the time he arrived, treating him to a blinking, bleary-eyed Charles who was just sitting up against the pillows but who probably hadn't been sleeping.

Charles was still wincing against the light when he spoke. It endeared him to Erik, even now. Nothing didn't.

"The fact that you're so angry is actually heartening."

Erik shut the door behind him, silently but for the creak of the spring behind the latch. His eyes had already adjusted. Contrary to what some others would assume, he hadn't been sitting in the dark. He had already noticed the bandage across Charles' cheekbone and he lifted his face to nod at it. "Are you all right?"

"Ah--" Charles lifted his fingers to the bandage. "Rug burn," he confessed. "Nothing more serious than that."

Charles had smiled, though he still watched Erik attentively.

Erik's relief almost failed to register. He wanted to pace, but instead he let his steps take him only as far as the bed, where he sat down, facing the wall. There was no mirror above the dresser. Charles was behind him, unseen, but Erik could still picture him, almost too clearly.

Still strong, but thinner. Still charming, but hoarse. Generous, but hollow. Hopeful, but resigned. Pale. Exhausted. Afraid.

"I want to believe," Erik said, carefully, "that you know what you're doing."

Erik had never spoken up, spoken out, against Charles' decisions in the war. They were personal. They were none of Erik's business. Erik's business was to pave the road home if not the way forward, to facilitate, to shield, to respect. To believe.

"But you can't," Charles finished.

Kindly.

Gently.

All the qualities that brutality destroyed.

"You ask too much of yourself. What you're doing with Cerebro."

Erik had still been a boy when he'd been picking his way among the dead and dying. He was adding to their numbers before he was a man. More than once he'd come a hair's breadth from joining them. He no longer felt the urge even to look away from death when he saw it. But he would stand between it and Charles.

A creak in the mattress signaled a shift of Charles' weight, perhaps only a tip of his head.

"What about Emma? Are you as worried for her as you are for me?"

Erik frowned. He was not without concern. But--"Emma has seen death. She has knowingly abetted it."

"And I, the innocent lamb."

Charles said it lightly, but Erik turned enough to read his face. Charles, he was surprised to find, was trying to read his.

In the end, he seemed sadly amused. "Did I never tell you?"

Erik couldn't guess what. He hesitated, but he shook his head, his eyes never leaving Charles' face, which had not yet betrayed what he was about to hear. But his thoughts--they had drawn in, stiffened.

Propped up against the headboard, Charles drew his breath and let it out. "This is not something I ever imagined telling you in my pajamas, but here we are. When you, ah--" In lieu of the words, Charles lifted his hand, fingers outstretched, and he tapped his thumb to the center of his forehead. "With Shaw."

Charles watched Erik now with a carefulness that in itself told Erik the rest.

"I felt the whole thing. I couldn't help it."

In a moment Erik was transported to the reactor chamber. He remembered without any degradation to the memory how good his hatred felt, how powerful. He remembered how little he mourned what he was about to do, the manner in which he was about to do it. Shaw had seen his death coming. Shaw could do nothing to stop it. If Shaw was afraid, he deserved it. If Shaw felt the pain, he deserved it. If Shaw remained conscious through the _very end_ , he deserved it.

Shaw.

Never Charles.

Never _Charles_ \--

"I should have been able to blind myself to it, to focus only on holding him still. But I panicked. It was obviously not something I'd ever trained for. And I--"

Was Charles apologizing? _Charles?_

"I was worried that I'd fail. That in an effort to protect myself I would fail to protect you. So I just--I endured it."

Erik stood up. Charles reached for him in that instant, but Erik was too far from him. He took slow, even strides to the door. He set his curled hands against it. He leaned into it until his forearms met it and rested his forehead there. He made himself still.

"I'm sorry, Charles."

"I didn't tell you this to hurt you," said Charles, softly. "But I wanted you to know that I went into this with my eyes open. I knew what it would feel like. He may have been the worst of men, but his experience in that moment was--typical."

Erik forced his focus away from himself and turned instead to watch Charles.

Then Charles shrugged. Briefly, the corners of his mouth lifted. "It was the scale I wasn't prepared for."

It was not a ploy for pity, or even reassurance, but a confession between the two of them. He wasn't strong enough. He might fail.

"If you want to protect me," continued Charles, "then come to bed, and help me rest." He tossed back the bedding on Erik's side of the bed, not with expectation, but hope. Need.

Erik was not a helpless man.

Erik undressed, and clothed himself in the role of one.

*****

In the morning, Erik woke early, but he did not rise. Instead he listened to Charles' breathing, that it was deep and clear. Where Erik's hand rested over Charles' on his chest, he curled his fingers around the inside of his wrist.

When Erik closed his eyes, he did not doze so much as follow Charles through imagined fields, imagined huts. Charles' dreams. Erik did not shut them out--he did not leave Charles alone there.

When Charles woke at sunrise, he smiled genuinely to see Erik still with him, but he was quiet. He drew Erik's hand to his lips to kiss its knuckles before he slipped out of bed to his chair, and Erik did not delay him as Charles left for the adjoining bathroom to begin preparing for his day.

It was only when Charles was at the sink, and he had opened the door between them again, that Erik rose from the bed. He approached to set his shoulder against the jamb. Loosely, he folded his arms in the chill air and watched Charles dry his face with a towel.

"Should I expect a repeat of last night?" he asked.

Charles sighed, slowly. He ran his fingers through his hair, then resorted to a brush.

"I will do better next time," Charles answered. He sat back in his chair and looked up at Erik. He smiled lightly. "I know how."

"Can I help?"

Charles smiled again, his eyes closing briefly as he shook his head. He opened his eyes to find himself in the mirror again. "I can't take the pain of what he's experienced without feeling it myself. There's no way around that."

Charles' hands dropped to the wheels of his chair, and Erik moved aside for him.

"It's not for nothing that he's traumatized."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been ages, so if you're still reading this (and you are the best if you are, honestly, I'm so happy), here's a recap of the previous three chapters: The school is closed for now. Alex is home, injured from the war. Sean is still fighting. Hank as Charles' caretaker is exempt. Charles and Emma are using Cerebro to lessen the suffering caused by the war but are not tipping its progress in any direction. Raven is taking a break from espionage. Erik is doing less than he would like.

" _When we speak of America's priorities the first priority must always be peace for America and the world._ "

Charles, seated in the television room--one of several now, he supposed--shared a glance with Emma. Were they not privy to the iceberg beneath these occasional assurances, Charles might have found something akin to hope as President Nixon went on to steadfastly remind the nation that the end was in sight, and that it would be an end that America could be proud of.

Nixon, nor the news desk anchors in the usual hour to follow, could tell them anything they did not already know. What became news to them was the spin, the misrepresentation, the false promises--or as often, the contrasting hard truth broadcast in unflinching color, the reaction at home.

Beyond that, Charles needed this time, the perspective of an ordinary citizen, sitting in any ordinary living room, surrounded by family. It grounded him, not only in the minds of his fellows, but in the company of the people he loved. He needed something common between them, something shared. A moment to mourn the same tragedies, or to sigh with the same gratitude.

Raven sat beside him on the couch, leaning into his shoulder. Perhaps her weight against him was not so carefree or assuming as it once was, but he was glad of it. Erik sat on the arm of the couch to his other side, hovering, a shield to use the obvious word. Hank sat in his chair beside Emma's, soberly observing the broadcast as every night, never hazarding a judgment.

Nixon went on, guiding the focus of his speech away from the war and toward the substantial problems at home. First, the welfare system. Second, institutional reform at the government level.

" _Third, we must adopt reforms which will expand the range of opportunities for all Americans, human and mutant alike. We can fulfill the American dream only when each person has a fair chance to fulfill his own dreams._ "

Charles had lifted his brow. Human _and mutant_? Raven leaned a little closer to him. "That was mine."

"Nicely done." Though he stopped short of kissing her forehead, he could not help his broad smile, his display of genuine pride and admiration so apparently overbearing that she elbowed him in the ribs to make him stop. Instead he looked up to Erik on his other side, who conveyed his respect with a more restrained expression.

"See what you can do about the andro-centrisms next," said Emma, but she smiled.

As the speech wound down, through ever more aspirational assertions about America's duty and the future that depended on it, Alex appeared at the doorway.

Charles greeted him brightly, as much to welcome him as to announce his presence. He gestured to the television. "Hank, could you--"

"Leave it," said Alex. "I know what time it is."

He no longer kept his arm in its sling, but he'd taken to holding it against his side with his other arm crossed over his middle. It threatened to give him the posture of the meek, but he kept his shoulders back and his head up.

He crossed the room to sit in the empty space next to Raven. Raven squeezed his knee, and Charles caught Hank turning his attention back to the television.

It was well that they were all together. The speech concluded to silence in the television room. If they were offering the first word on the subject to Alex, he didn't take it. The real controversy followed on the local news.

As soon as Charles saw the man on the screen, his stomach sank. He was too much the Everyman, too unremarkable, his gaze eager and reactionary, nervous, desperate--if Charles was reading him correctly. He was the face of America.

"We had pretty good support at the town hall," the man was saying to the reporter. "But this ain't a local issue, we've got to go to the top. We've got mutants fighting alongside our boys with the strength of ten men, twenty men. They're faster, they're bigger, they're better--why don't we send 'em all over there? Why don't we send 'em first? Before our own? We could win the war next month, and see 'em back home without a scratch on 'em. I've got one boy over there already, and another one they're gonna take any day now. We don't send our school kids or our sick over there--well compared to them we're the cripples, we're the children. It ain't fair."

They'd rally at the courthouse, the man said. And with enough support, they'd bring the crowd to Washington.

Charles had no doubt the man would find the support he sought. This was the other side of the mutant recognition they were trying to establish, and such sentiment would spread like wildfire if it was allowed to burn. The word was already out.

The program moved on to other topics. Beside him, Erik lifted his hand, and the television set blinked out with a tinny whine.

What would they do?

"I'm with Erik," said Raven.

"He hasn't even said anything yet."

"What do you suggest, Charles?" said Erik.

"Use Cerebro. Reignite the man's conscience. Give him the courage to know what's truly fair."

"And what _is_ fair?" asked Raven. Alex was looking at Charles, but silent.

"Appealing to his more refined sensibilities isn't going to solve this," reasoned Emma. "He's acting out of fear. We have to counter with something just as strong."

"And we have to do it now," added Raven.

Charles drew his breath slowly. What was as strong as a man's instinct to protect his children? Violence? The credible threat of death? What would it take to unseat such primal conviction?

"Shall we decide?" Charles asked, wearily. He looked up at Erik as a formality, then passed his gaze over Raven, who had already cast her lot. "Alex?"

"I'm with Erik."

As for Emma, she inclined her head with a modest, retiring blink.

Perhaps Hank looked somewhat relieved that his vote wouldn't change anything.

"Very well," said Charles.

*****

When the television was switched back on, the programming had shifted to lighter fare. Erik left to begin gathering information. Emma took her leave to get some rest. Charles too had somewhere to be, but he kept his seat at Raven's side for the moment while Alex and Hank watched the set.

"You always take his side," said Charles. He kept his voice low so that he wouldn't disrupt the program. He smiled.

She turned to look at him, but thankfully her expression remained receptive. She looked over his face.

"If I take your side in this discussion," she mused, "does that make you right, or wrong?"

He smiled at her paradox. "I'd be happy to be wrong sometimes."

She laughed. Hank threw her a glance, though whether it was because of the disruption or his own curiosity, Charles didn't seek to know. Charles laughed too, if only to remain close to her a little longer.

"I don't always have to be right," he chided.

"That is a bold-faced lie," she answered, inclining her head as though imparting a secret.

Again he smiled at her. His cheeks ached with it. What a gift it was to have her near him, to be able to speak with her like this again. He would not take it for granted. He'd made that mistake before.

This time he did kiss her forehead, his hand to the back of her hair before she could dodge him. He transferred himself into his nearby chair. "It's 'bald-faced', actually."

"How can anybody have a bald face?"

"Hank's got a bald face right now," muttered Alex.

Charles suppressed his laugh until he was well down the corridor, but he knew it was still within Hank's earshot.

*****

Erik spent most of the night in Beast's small recording room. It was a dense, claustrophobic space with all of the equipment loaded into what was essentially a closet, but there were no distractions, and Erik felt focused, purposeful, even calm.

Across various tape decks and screens Erik was able to replay the broadcast they had seen together, but also the concurrent broadcasts across all of the domestic networks, and even one out of Canada. Only two of the stations had aired an interview with the man. His propaganda differed little between the two interviews. The segment they had not seen had included a counterpoint from another citizen at the town hall, criticizing the budding movement, but Erik doubted that the elderly woman's voice of reason would carry very far at all.

When he had seen all of that night's news, he went back three more nights for anything they might have missed. But there was nothing there that he hadn't already seen in print.

It was a few hours before dawn when he felt Charles' approach in the hallway outside the door. Erik cut the sound and gestured for the door to open.

There wasn't room enough for the chair. Slowly, Charles stood up, stretching carefully, then more liberally as he worked out his arms. He advanced the two steps into the room as the space allowed, but ended up backtracking a step to the door frame, where he leaned into it. "I hope I'm not disturbing you," he said.

"I was just finished," said Erik. It was a small lie; he could have gone on hours longer, searching for evidence, for guilt, for trespasses to correct.

Charles' eyes briefly scanned the images still playing on one of the screens, now silent, and irrelevant besides. Eventually he nodded, and his eyes drooped. Despite how tired he looked, he had more to say than Goodnight, and he seemed unable to say it quickly. Erik waited.

"What will you do to him?" Charles asked.

"Only what I have to," answered Erik. He knew the response was inadequate. But it was also the truth. Contrary to the portrait he had made of himself, Erik didn't enjoy violence.

He enjoyed what was right.

"Why do you worry about the likes of him?"

Charles shook his head wearily. He shrugged. "Can't you understand where he's coming from?"

"I understand the weakness in his morality all too well. That doesn't mean I excuse it. They concede to our superiority now, that they may cower behind us."

"And come peacetime, they will stab us in the backs we have turned to them?" Charles finished for him, his tone almost mocking in his weariness and irritation.

Unabashed, Erik gave his own shrug, switching off the sets. He stood up, but Charles didn't move from the doorway. "It's not my fault they're predictable."

Charles made a long sigh. " _You_ are predictable."

Erik took a step from his chair to depart the room. Charles still hadn't moved.

After a moment of impasse, Charles finally lifted a slip of paper. Erik took it.

"His address," Charles said.

*****

It was late morning when Charles finally left the bedroom. He had slept like a brick and felt all the sorer for it, and just as exhausted as when he had closed his eyes. He found Hank in the laboratory.

"What can I take for my head?" asked Charles. "And my back. Everywhere, really." He nudged at his thigh. "I'm sure these would hurt if they could."

Hank, looking none the better himself, lifted his gaze from the text in front of him and blinked behind his glasses. "Aspirin shouldn't react with anything you're taking." He stood up from the stool and walked over to a cabinet, jostling out two pills from a bottle he found there. He returned to Charles and released the pills into his hand. "You should take those with food."

"That's my next stop," said Charles. He dropped the pills into his shirt pocket and began to turn his chair around.

"Is there anything else wrong, Professor? We could do a quick scan--"

"God, no, Hank--"

"I could make you something to eat?"

Charles turned back to him. "I'll be fine, Hank. What's this sudden worry?"

Hank dropped his gaze. He seemed to be listening for anyone else on the subterranean level.

"Looking after you is the only reason I'm here and not there," he said, finally.

His excuse.

His pardon.

Charles sighed gently. "I think we both know it's only a matter of time before I get into some trouble only you can help me out of. Lunchtime will not be one of those situations, if I can at all help it. Hm?"

Hank looked up briefly, but he bowed his head again without answering.

Charles wheeled himself closer. He took hold of Hank's forearm in lieu of his shoulder and waited until Hank met his eyes. He told him what he wasn't likely to hear in any speech, or read on any recruitment poster.

"You are allowed to be grateful for this."

*****

Charles made himself a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen but beyond that could only muster up a bowl of cereal. He hadn't lied: he could have managed something more elaborate, but what he boasted in resourcefulness, today he lacked in energy. And in mood.

Raven stepped into the kitchen when he was mid-way through his bowl. She hesitated just past the doorway as though she weren't prepared for the company, but her stride resumed.

Without saying anything, she retrieved a bowl and a spoon and sat down across from Charles. He pushed the cereal box and the milk across the wooden table to her and almost smiled. How many mornings did they use to spend alone this way? Avoiding the few other residents of the house, sometimes making it through whole days without encountering another soul in a feat made possible only by such a house and such a telepath . . . 

Of course, it hadn't always been very difficult. Seldom did anyone actually seek them out.

Charles didn't want to ruin the moment by speaking. He focused on the rest of his late breakfast and watched her pick at hers. He was about to break his pledge to himself to ask her if she was all right when she spoke first.

"How long has Hank been using the serum?"

Charles considered the question. "A few years now," he answered, studying her face for any clues. "Why do you ask?"

She sat back from the table and folded her arms slowly. She shrugged. "You're OK with it?"

He pushed his bowl away, empty, to fold his arms on the table. "He tells me it is carefully formulated not to do him any harm. And it does no one else harm. If it's what he wants, I have no grounds to object."

"He's rejecting his mutant nature. You support that? You don't think he'd be better off accepting it?"

Charles chewed his lip briefly, drumming his fingers on his arm. "Erik doesn't like it either. But if the 'mutant nature' to which you refer is his occasionally distinctive appearance, he did not acquire it until his first attempt at modifying his phenotype. What you consider his true nature might also be called an accident, and one from which he is trying to recover."

"But he won't. If this is who he is now, shouldn't he stop pretending it isn't?"

Charles pursed his lips. He glanced down to the chair he sat in.

"Be that as it may, I'm really not in any position to say so."

She dropped her gaze to follow his, then shook her head. "That's not--Look, what I'm getting at is that the serum sometimes fails, and he can't cope. He can't handle it."

Charles frowned. "He's used his . . . modified form before, to our advantage, when the situation has called for it."

"Because he chose to. Sometimes he--he doesn't choose to."

Charles frowned again, trying to read his sister's face.

"When he's stressed."

Still Charles frowned.

"When he's _feeling very strongly_."

Still yet.

"When we're--"

"Oh, my God, Raven--" Charles winced, lifting his hand from the table to shield his eyes as though she had, once again, relieved herself of clothing for the first time in front of him, in this very space. Was it the kitchen that did it? The table? Should he burn it? "Have you spoken to Emma about this? She's really more sympathetic about these things than she lets on."

Just as on that pivotal night, she forged ahead, fearless. "Too late. I'm talking to you. Besides, it's not about me. It's about him."

She paused, and though she was quiet, Charles could almost hear a change in her tone: in her breathing, in her slow shifting in the chair. He dropped his hand to look at her again, rallying his powers of objectivity.

She met his gaze. "He thinks I deserve better."

"Than him?"

"Than an animal." Her jaw clenched. "His word, not mine."

Slowly, Charles sat back in his chair. It was heartbreaking to think the shame that had put Hank on this path to begin with should have strengthened. In all likelihood, the suppression of his physical qualities had reinforced his negative perceptions about them.

At length, Charles sighed. "You may be right. About the serum. But until he comes to me--"

"Do you expect him to?"

Sadly, Charles shook his head. "But it has to come from him."

Raven stared hard at him, again just as from that night, drumming her fingers on the table until she stood up. She took her bowl to the sink and discarded its contents. Charles listened to the frustrated sounds of her scrubbing it.

"So that's my story," she said over the sound of the faucet. She turned it off. "What's yours?"

He turned himself in his chair to look at her with lifted brows where she leaned against the counter. When he said nothing, she rolled her eyes. "You can talk about Erik."

Charles averted his eyes, a habit of discretion. Yet she had given something of herself. What would he be risking by refusing to reciprocate?

He turned halfway to the table again, hiding the inevitable blush in his cheeks.

"Erik left without waking me." It sounded embarrassingly trite to say it. "It's his way. His . . . efficiency."

But it set Charles' whole world back about seven years, when the biggest tragedy on his mind had been the one he perceived to be his own.

Simpler times, to be sure.

"I'm sure he'll be back by morning," offered Raven. And she knew him perhaps as well as Charles did. She had known him when Charles had not known him at all.

"I'm sure," Charles echoed.

*****

In the early hours of a silent morning, Erik stood in a dark room, out of sight of the window where half a moon cast a thin sheet of light, and out of sight of a door to the hallway.

The bed in the room was empty, and made, but not perfectly straightened, as though someone came often to sit on it and did not always have the wherewithal to fix it behind him when he left.

Around the room, on shelves and dressers, on walls and nightstands, were collected the detritus of a young man who had outgrown the entertainment of his childhood but was not prepared for the duty he'd grown into. The books referenced little of history. The music boasted only of love and of drugs. His absence was the only piece of his identity here that fit.

Erik had arrived without incident in the early afternoon. While Emma, even Charles, had given him all of the information he needed, he had spent the day weaving between the people of this town, overhearing their conversations, reading their obscure newspapers. He was at home in the field, trailing targets, absorbing what was useful to him.

In the end there was no challenge here for him. It was easy to drop unnoticed into a yard, easy to walk past the locks of a darkened house, easy to find his way silently to this room. He broke nothing, vandalized nothing. At worst he had eased open the window in this room, allowing frigid air to stir the curtains as it spilled over the sill and crept across the floor of the house. In his best work he left only the impressions, the thoughts to shape the outcome, the way that Charles might.

Although that wasn't to say he didn't miss using other tactics, methods more gratifying, more immediate, more destructive . . . 

Across the hall slept a man and his wife. Indulging in an old trick for which he could find no replacement, he tugged at the metal fillings in the man's teeth. The bed creaked. Erik pulled harder, and the bed creaked again until Erik heard the sound of the man's feet on the floor.

Erik listened to the sound of the barefoot steps as the man entered the hallway and began to walk past his oldest son's room on his way to the medicine cabinet at the end of the hall.

Whether he noticed the cold air pooling around his feet or the white curtains billowing faintly in the moonlight, he entered the room where Erik waited. Rubbing his arms through his thin shirt, he crossed the room, heading for the window. Erik moved behind him.

He brought his right hand around to cover the man's mouth, pulling him back, at the same time using his other hand to jab the ends of stiffened fingers low into the man's kidney, forcing him to inhale and go rigid rather than cry out or fight.

"Keep quiet," said Erik into his ear, just loud enough to be heard over the rush of air through the man's nostrils. "I won't mind getting your wife involved, but you might."

Erik kept his fingers where they were. Eventually the man exhaled, in short huffs over Erik's knuckles, but he made no other sound. His hands were raised in reflex, tensed into claws, but he telegraphed no intent to use them with any confidence to defend himself. For the moment, Erik had arranged his compliance.

"I think you know why I'm here," said Erik. He kept his voice close to the man's ear, lest he forget how easily Erik had claimed this space. "In this room." Without relaxing his grip, he shifted his fingers down close to the man's throat, lifting him under the jaw.

"My boy," the man labored, his teeth clamped together from his own weight. "You're a mutant."

"And not just me," said Erik. "Do you know how much more likely your son is to survive alongside the mutant in his troupe?"

The man said nothing. Perhaps it was too difficult under Erik's grip.

"I'll simplify. Do you know how much more likely your son is to die if he is transferred to a troupe without one?"

Now the man struggled to speak, straining on the balls of his feet.

"You can't do that. My son never--"

"I can do it. And I will." Erik tightened his hold, but kept his voice down. Barely. "Because you would do it to my sons, to my brothers.

"Cancel your rally. Silence your supporters. If anyone picks up your torch I will return to burn you with it. Remember what you said. We are faster, we are stronger. We are better."

Erik hauled the man around to face the doorway, the man's bare feet scuffling over old carpet. He released him and the man stumbled forward, then turned to back away, to place Erik, to keep space between them. His eyes searched Erik's person, but Erik knew he was just a dark figure, featureless, throwing his own shadow over his face.

Erik stepped forward, and the man backed further away, his hand holding his throat. He struck the frame of the door.

But Erik was finished, nearly. He continued to stride forward, and would leave unhurried, through the hall, through the front door and out of this town before this man could even crawl back into the space he'd left next to his wife. Erik paused only to deliver his parting words at the man's shoulder.

"Equal treatment is your salvation, not ours."

*****

The mansion was quiet when Erik returned to it--quiet and very warm after the frigid air that bore him thither. He closed the heavy door behind him and it resounded in the foyer, but no further.

The quiet was not unexpected. There were less than ten of them in residence, and it was the middle of the night. But as Erik took the hallway through the ground floor to the bedroom, he expected more. Even if Charles was sound asleep, Erik would hear him-- _feel_ him--like the distant, yet palpable roar of an ocean not far beyond their walls, immutable, ever present. When Erik stepped into the room and switched on the light, he was not surprised to see that the bed was empty. But he was alarmed.

He did not bother to take the stairs down. Instead he went up, knocking on Emma's door. He didn't announce himself--she'd know.

In a moment she had drawn open the door. There was no irritation there; he wouldn't call on her for nothing.

"Is Charles in the house?" he asked.

She looked away, then shook her head. "I can't feel him. Either he's not here, or he's in Cerebro."

"He was supposed to be out by now."

Erik was already moving away from her, heading again for the stairs. He didn't have to ask her: he heard her footsteps trailing his. There was no door in this house that he couldn't open, even Cerebro's, but the inside of that vault was better left to the control of telepaths.

He took the stairs down before her all the way to the basement level, but once they reached the corridor to Cerebro she overtook him, reaching the door before he did. Heavy gears churned invisibly in the wall. The circular door rolled open, and he followed her inside.

Inside it was eerily silent. Where Erik's experience of Cerebro was usually a cacophony of competing existences, now there was only the sound of their breath.

But there were images. Painted across the dome of Cerebro were many faces, all expressionless, all glassy-eyed, all staring, it would appear, at Charles. And one by one they faded out--as their minds went permanently still, perhaps--only to be replaced with another. American, Vietnamese, soldier and sometimes peasant. Sometimes child.

Erik closed himself to the display. He'd seen that look before, he'd seen it many times, and he would not be brought back to that place. Instead he hurried to Charles, to see that he was staring back, that he was weeping, but breathing. He made no answer to Erik as he tried to rouse him. His eyes did not move to acknowledge him. Erik reached for the controls.

"Wait," Emma commanded. "Turn it slowly. We have to be careful."

Erik watched her as she leaned in front of Charles. She extended her hands to position her fingers between Charles and the contacts in the heavy circlet he wore. She looked at Erik.

Slowly, he began to turn the power down, watching for her to signal him otherwise. But her eyes had closed, and as he continued to turn the dial down, her hands reached further in, palms against Charles' head, the circlet beginning to lift.

When the dial had reached its lowest setting, Erik flipped the switch off. At the same moment, Emma took hold of the circlet so that it would not clatter to the floor, and after a terrible moment where Charles continued to stare into a war that could no longer be seen, he suddenly gasped, pulling in the air around him like he'd been pressed, like he had finally reached the surface of the water.

"Charles," Emma was saying, drawing Charles' attention to her, to her voice, and even Erik could hear her in his head and feel the draw of the beacon she conjured. "Come back to you. Leave no part of you behind. Be with us. Can you hear me?"

Charles' eyes had not dried, but he blinked, and he found her. He searched her face as though it might not have been real, but then he slumped in his chair. "I'm here. I'm--I'm here."

Erik watched as Charles drew in one, two even breaths. He seemed about to draw himself together under the dim lights of the chamber, but then he lifted his hands to his face and his shoulders hunched. He was propped up in the chair only by his elbow over the arm rest and Erik could feel his absolute willingness to drop out of the chair, to sink, to be low.

Charles had not acknowledged Erik was there at all. But surely he could feel Erik implicitly, surely he did not feel alone--or did he, in this place he had created for himself, where only Emma, perhaps, knew what he felt, and which Erik would never understand.

Erik leaned down, gathering Charles under the knees with one arm and sliding the other around his back. He lifted him from the chair, unfurling him from his bowed collapse, ready for the protest that didn't come. Instead Charles had turned his face to Erik's chest, one arm lifted to hold on to Erik by the back of his neck.

Erik could feel the tremor in his grip, the full breaths he couldn't manage.

He turned from the console. He caught Emma's eye as he did, to acknowledge her help, her lost sleep, but he found it safest to say nothing.

*****

An hour later--after Erik had carried him upstairs and down the hall to their room; after such sobering activities as catching up on missed doses of medication and other overdue care; while Charles ambled unsteadily with the help of the metal affixed to him because it was easier in the end--Erik sat up in bed against the pillows and the headboard with Charles' head in his lap. Charles' chair was outside the closed door in the hallway, though Erik couldn't remember if he had dragged it along behind him or if Emma had brought it there. All he knew was Charles, his weight as he carried him, the silence between them, the dogged look in his face as he tended to the bare minimum of his health before he could collapse into bed.

And when he finally did, and sought Erik's closeness as a child might, Erik knew nothing more than the feel of Charles' hair as he moved his hands-- _his father's hands_ \--through it.

"I'm so tired of this war," whispered Charles. He hadn't spoken since his few words in Cerebro. He sounded like he hadn't spoken in years. "And it is not even the worst. I am not even there."

Erik exhaled slowly.

"You're allowed to be tired, Charles." _And angry, and violent, and vengeful._ Erik would have gone on, if it would have helped.

"Even what I am doing--" Charles went on, as though he hadn't heard him, "the least I can do, the most I can do without interfering--some would say even that is wrong."

"Who are they to know?" Erik's hands had gone still. Consciously he resumed their activity, combing through Charles' hair. It needed to be cut.

Charles shrugged, his shoulder moving against Erik's leg. "If suffering purifies the soul--if suffering is the teacher and freedom from reincarnation the lesson--"

The idea angered Erik. "Do you believe that?"

Charles was quiet. Erik continued to draw the hair back from his temple and forehead.

_There's not a lot I believe in anymore,_ Charles said to him, a mind on the verge of sleep, on the verge of surrender.

Sleep claimed it first.

*****

Four days passed.

Charles had been summarily banned from using Cerebro: by Emma, who knew the state of his mind; by Hank, who knew the state of his body; and by Erik, who knew the state of what was left.

While he knew he needed the rest, and sometimes nearly wept into his pillow to have it, the guilt was less than therapeutic. Emma slowed the war so that she could keep up with it on her own, but what had broken him awaited its chance with her. Another day, perhaps, but his convalescence would have to end. And he would have to be more careful. Harder of heart. Less like himself. It was necessary.

The weather, when he had taken the time to notice it, had been fickle. The sun was just strong enough to begin melting snow by day for the night to freeze when it set. New snow threatened to fall, but could not keep its resolve between earth and sky. Sleet struck the windows with rude insistence before weakening and softening to rain.

But today the sun had broken free of the clouds by early morning, and all around Charles where he sat on the terrace was the smell of warm, wet stone and bright young leaves shivering in the bared patches of ground. It was a day for beginnings, for possibilities. It was a day for change. Charles could feel it.

Which was why he was here on the terrace when Alex, carrying a bag over his good shoulder, quietly shut a side door of the mansion behind him and began walking down the path to the garages.

Charles watched him for a few paces. There was no hesitance. He was not dragging his step to be seen, to be begged back. He was nearly gone already.

Charles called after him.

"Can you drive with that arm?"

Alex stopped. He looked over his shoulder enough to see Charles, but he turned away again. He kept walking.

"I'm taking the automatic."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nixon's lines--save for the mutant bit, of course--come from his State of the Union address from the beginning of that year, so while the speech is real, the timing is not. You can read the full text of his address here: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2921


End file.
